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The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has recovered a Sh70 million government house in Nyali Mombasa

In a judgement delivered by the Environment and Land Court sitting in Mombasa, on Thursday last week, the court further ordered the then Commissioner of Lands Sammy Mwaita, who facilitated the fraudulent transaction to personally pay Sh5 million in damages for breaching public trust by dishing out public land to private persons.

Illegal possession

The property, in Nyali estate belongs to the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA).

In a new and progressive jurisprudence in the recovery of grabbed public land in Kenya, Justice Lucas Leperes Naikuni further ordered that the three defendants, excluding Mwaita, in addition to surrendering the property, jointly pay Sh30 million in general damages for denying the Government use of the property for public benefit during the 22 years when the land was in illegal possession.

In the suit filed by the EACC  predecessor, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Corruption (KACC), in 2009, the Commission sued two private companies –Bernsoft Limited, Equitronics Limited and Mwita

 The court declared that the title to the land parcel was unlawfully issued to the two companies and therefore null and void. The Land Registrar Mombasa was also ordered to cancel and revoke the certificate of title and issue certificate of title relating to the said parcel of land to KCAA.

The government had reserved the land situated in Bamburi/Nyali estate within Mombasa Municipality for the construction of a house for the members of staff of the then Directorate of Civil Aviation.

Around August 1976 a Deed Plan was prepared and was duly registered with the Director of Survey. Sometimes in 1977, the Government through the then East African Community completed the construction of a four-bedroom bungalow with a servant quarter on the property and allocated it to then Directorate of Civil Aviation to house its members of staff.

Private companies

However, in the year 2000, the two private companies fraudulently and illegally used the survey plan and the deed plan prepared by the then East Africa Community and registered with the Director of Surveys to prepare and register a Grant in the name of the Bernsoft Limited.