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The government has reverted a public land that the government had repossessed to a private developer.

The Ruiru land is meant for a pumping station for Ruiru–Kabete water supply and future expansion of the Nairobi waste and sewerage system.

In a Gazette Notice dated December 15, Interior and National Administration Cabinet Secretary Prof Kithure Kindiki also allowed the subdivision of the 1054.6 hectares of land in Nairobi’s Ruai area belonging to the Dandora Waste Water Treatment Plant.

“The expression in the schedule that reads “LR Number 12979 Public Utility land for Nairobi Sewer Treatment Plant to read a subdivision of LR number 12979 being LR  12979/1/R,’” Prof Kindiki says in a gazette notice number 3829.

He goes on to state: “The schedule by inserting another paragraph after the words: deposited in the survey records office at Nairobi to read subdivisions of LR number 12979 being LR 12979/3 measuring 404.58 hectares and LR number 12979/4 measuring 650.02 hectares and excluded from the Dandora Waste Water Treatment Plant (Ruai) protected area order 2020.”

Former President Uhuru had in 2020 revoked the allocation of the land in question to an influential personality serving in his then government. The individual, is still serving in a powerful and influential position in the current Kenya Kwanza government.

Through a gazette notice dated June 3, 2020, then Interior and National Coordination Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiangí had declared the land a protected area and a public utility.

“This order may be cited as the protected area order 2020. The areas/places or premises described in the schedule is/are declared to be protected areas for purpose of the act and no person shall be in the specified areas without permission of prescribed authority or the Cabinet Secretary for Water and Sanitation and Irrigation,” Dr Matiangí had said in the gazette notice.

He went on to state: “For the purpose of this order, the prescribed authority shall be the managing director Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company Limited.”

Were repossessed

The land was questionably split into LR Nos. 12979/1, 12979/2, 12979/3 and 12979/4 sometimes in 2016.

LR No. 12979/1 — measuring 1,716.9 hectares — is where the Dandora Sewerage Treatment Plant stands. LR No. 121297/3 (1,000 acres) and LR No. 12979/4 (1,600 acres) said to belong to Offshore Trading Company and Renton Company Limited were then repossessed by President Uhuru’s administration.

LR No. 12979/2 — measuring approximately 3,614.2 hectares — which had partly been occupied by squatters was also later repossessed towards the end of the President Uhuru administration.

Before the invasion of the land, Justices John Mutungi, Lucy Gacheru and Pauline Nyamweya had issued orders preventing the use, transfer or development of the property, now worth over Sh20 billion going by current market rates for private purposes.

The orders were issued after Ruai Squatters Settlement Scheme sued Renton and City Hall to stop their eviction from the property.

In a show of impunity, Renton somehow acquired approvals from Nairobi County for the construction of multiple apartment blocks, hotels and a school on the land.

Former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero’s administration granted the approvals on November 14, 2013.

The approvals were given a year after Renton attempted to sell the 1,600 acres of land it claimed to belong to Magereza Sacco, a savings and credit society for Kenya Prisons staffers.