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State Department of Correctional Services has initiated a plan to evict squatters who have encroached on more than 4,242 acres of Prisons land across the country.

This even as the National Lands Commission (NLC) has been roped in to aid in the recovery of 102 title deeds for parcels of land belonging to correctional facility department.

Correctional Services Principal Secretary Salome Beacco said that the Judiciary had been instrumental in expediting court cases, which had in turn allowed her department to reclaim some of the grabbed land. “We have filed suits in court on the lands that have been encroached and we have succeeded in almost all of those cases to get judgments in our favour. We are now embarking on the process of evicting those who have encroached the land pursuant to the judgement on those cases,” said Beacco.

Speaking to the press during a breakfast meeting, Beacco said that NLC and the Ministry of Lands have agreed to be active participants in the reclaiming of the encroached land.

“Some of those parcels of land have been returned but not at the pace we wanted. However, it is work in progress. We are very happy that the Judiciary has pronounced itself decisively on matters of prison land,” she said.

She however, noted that there are still some court cases pending in courts and once they get a ruling, will act accordingly. The PS further said that her department is in the process of documenting, surveying and acquiring title deeds for the remaining parcels through an Inter-Ministerial Committee.

The Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in her latest audit report on the State Department of Correctional Services on the encroached parcels of land put the value at Sh3billion with some having been embroiled in court disputes for over 30 years. For instance, some 2,321 acres of land in Kitale belonging to Kitale Main and Kitale Medium prisons were allegedly grabbed and has been to home of the squatters which for the last 30 years.