26TH SEPTEMBER 2023
The Embu County Government has confirmed that two parcels of public land previously used as a cemetery and dumpsite at Ishiara in Evurore Ward have been grabbed by private developers.
County Assembly Lands, Housing and Urban Planning Committee Chairman Barnabas Njama (Kyeni South) confirmed that the County Executive Member for Lands was aware that the pieces of land had been encroached into and demarcated in readiness for construction of commercial buildings.
Njama pointed out that part of the problem stemmed from the failure to register the two lucrative parcels of land registered under the County Government and secured through fencing to ward off unscrupulous grabbers whom he noted have an insatiable appetite for public property.
The Chairman read a response from the County Executive which revealed that the cemetery had been flattened and the dumpsite cleared, with evidence of activities by unknown individuals to subdivide and erect structures. The response stated that action would be taken to re-claim the grabbed land.
Area MCA Duncan Mbui who had sought the question on whether the line docket was aware of the grabbing said there was accelerated activity on the two pieces of land, yet the County Government was slow in implementing measures to evict the private developers setting base at the said area.
He further revealed that following investigations on the pieces of land, the developers had grown bolder and had begun daring County Officials to evict them. The leader suggested that the county continues to dump solid waste on the land despite the developments in an effort to force the encroachers out.
Mbui also lamented that ownership documents for the two parcels of land purchased by the defunct Mbeere County Council in 1992 could not be traced. He expressed concern that some crooked County Government officials may be colluding with cartels to frustrate repossession efforts.
The MCA at the same time called upon the Lands Committee to visit the site of the land parcels in question to ascertain the real situation on the ground. Mbui said there was currently no public cemetery or dumpsite following the illegal invasion and conversion of the land to commercial use.
