The government has approved the release of some Sh50 million as part of claim settlement for Project Affected Persons (PAPs), whose land was hived off for the construction of the Sagana-Kenol dual carriageway.
The tranche forms part of millions of shillings of compensation money that has been paid out to families whose land was acquired for the dualling of the key highway.
National Land Commission (NLC) commissioner Esther Murugi said the money is expected to be credited to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts by next week.
Murugi, who once served as Nyeri Town MP, attributed the slow pace of paying out compensation money to numerous family disputes, which has at times forced the Commission to wait a bit longer before any claims can be paid out.
Murugi was speaking in Nyeri during the hearings of a two-day Historical Land Injustices claims forum organized by the Commission.
“We know the Projected Affected Persons are a bit unhappy, but we also understand the financial situation that the country is in and it will be our wish that once a project is started the affected persons are paid affront. But we are doing whatever we can with the acquiring agent. Yesterday (Monday) we were able to approve Sh50 million which the affected persons will be able to get by next week. It will be a Christmas gift to them,” she told KNA on the sidelines of the forum.
A total of Sh4.8 billion had been set aside as compensation money for a total of 2,350 PAPs with 1,014 being residents of Kirinyaga County, while 1,350 were from Nyeri.
In September this year, a report by Kenya National Highway Authority (Kenha) showed only 453 (34%) of PAPs from Nyeri had been compensated leaving 897 pending claims.
Kirinyaga was on the lead with at least 92 per cent or 932 families having already received their claims.
“Delayed payment of money for acquisition of affected land and property on some sections of the road has resulted in contractors suspending works on this specific road. The unavailable section in total is 7.598 kilometer out of 36 kilometers,” read part of the report which was presented to the Nyeri County Implementation Coordination and Management Committee (NGD-CICMC) by Central Region Kenha Deputy Engineer Javan Wandiema.
“The delay of payment of acquisition money for Marua interchange resulted in delayed start of the construction of the bridge at this specific location,” added the report.
Wandiema said delays in paying claimants had already been escalated to the National Treasury, but they were yet to receive a word, on when money will be available to pay the remaining claimants.
Normally such monies are wired to Kenha who in turn credits the funds to the National Land Commission (NLC) which is the paying agent.
Murugi also cited lack of binding mandate in implementing some of the commission’s recommendations as one of the challenges that has affected speedy delivery of justice to petitioners seeking redress in land petitions.
She said while the time usually recommended to settle a single historical land injustice is normally three years, this timeline is rarely attained since the burden of settling such claims lies squarely on the respondent who in most cases may log an appeal either through NLC or a court of law.
“One of the challenges we as a Commission have had is determination, which is supposed to be implemented within a period of three years, but we don’t have that mandate. Ours is to determine, recommend the various agencies and the people to implement are various such as the churches, Kenya Forest Service among others,” she stated.
Prof. James Tuitoek, who is the chair of the Taskforce said the commission is handling a total of 3,743 cases bordering on historical land injustices across the country, which are currently at various stages of hearing.
He said some of the cases are quite complex due to their time span with some dating back to the colonial days.
Prof. Tuitoek said the Commission had divided its officials into groups of three who are traversing the country to hasten the hearing of the cases, before preparing individual reports by next year.
“This is an investigative hearing and we have to listen to all the parties involved. This morning, we listened to four injustices claims. In some of these, the respondents did not attend since they most likely received the communication late. But we received respondents from the Kenya Forest Service and the Catholic Diocese as respondents to some of the claims,” he said.
“Some of the claims require a bit of investigation and the commission wants to complete this as soon as possible, but it depends on the information we get from and the respondents. What we don’t want is to make a recommendation without listening to both parties.”
Among claimants who presented their petitions to the Commission included Paul Murage who wants the Catholic Diocese of Nyeri to relinquish a parcel of land he claims was taken from them by the church, while they were in detention.
However, Father David Mutahi (who is also the Church lawyer) said they could not respond to claims as the matter was currently in court.
On her part, Esther Wangui, representing the Mau Mau Harambee Jamhuri Ya Kenya claims the government erred by evicting them from 860 acres of land in Kabaru, Ragati and Hombe Forest reserves between 1982 and 1988 without giving them an alternative place to settle.
She now wants the Kenya Forest Service to allocate an alternative land or resettle the 250 families in their ancestral land, which she said had been set aside as a Native Forest Reserve by the British government through various Colonial Land Ordinances between 1902 and 1905.
But Prof. Tuitoek said the Commission will go and look at the petitions and the response from the respondents from all the nine cases before a decision can be delivered.
He further appealed to those who had not submitted their claims to the taskforce to do so via the commission’s online portal or physically drop their petitions at NLCs Nairobi office.
“We hope that we should be able to conclude these investigations in 2025. We did other complicated cases like Ogieks in the Mau complex and issued our determination. We are appealing to any claimant who has not been heard that they will be reached at some point and that is why we took the approach of County to County,” he pointed out.
By Samuel Maina and Wangari Mwangi
