National Land Commission on the spot over railway land payout

Kenya Railways Corporation now says that the National Land Commission (NLC) is to blame for the failed compensation of 10ns of families affected by the ongoing railway works in Naivasha.

The  corporation said that all funds meant to compensate families affected by the extension of the Mai Mahiu-Longonot metre-gauge-railway (MGR) line had been released to NLC.

This comes a couple of days after the corporation announced that work on the 24km line was complete with the commissioning set for November.

Not compensated

The government had set aside Sh3.5 billion for the railway line but to date, 10s of families living on Mai Mahiu and Longonot have not been compensated despite NLC taking over their land.

Kenya Railways  managing director Phillip Mainga exonerated the corporation from blame, noting that they were not involved in compensation for those affected by the project.

“We identified that land and the contractor and NLC had all the cash meant to compensate those affected by the extension of this line,” he said.

Speaking during a tour of the project in Longonot, he noted that land disputes and lack of legal documents could have affected the compensation process.

According to one of the affected persons, Daniel Kibunja, there were fears that they could miss out on compensation as the railway line was in its last stages of completion.

He said that they had on various occasions visited the offices of NLC where they had been promised payment but this was not fulfilled.

This was echoed by Margaret Mwaura who said that her house was demolished to pave way for the railway line a year ago but she had not been compensated.