Hundreds of property owners sitting on Kenya Forest land in Langata face a grim future as the forest body readies to take back its grabbed land.
The land in contention lies next to the Langata cemetery stretching all the way to the Dog unit headquarters and bordering the Bomas of Kenya forest.
The prime estates within the grabbed area are Parkplace overlooking the cemetery, Sunvalley 1 and 2 estates and the KMA estate.
Last night, the Kenya Forest service Chairman Peter Kinyua termed the developments illegal adding the Forest Agency is working with investigative agencies and legal process to reposes all the land parcels.
Hot News has uncovered that the land in Sunvalley was grabbed in 1996 by an unnamed MP while Park place was alienated by a wheeler dealer businessman who later sold it to a Somali businessman.
The land was never degazetted.
Part of the forest was used by the Dog unit officers for dog training exercises but it’s no more.
Now, the grabbers are selling plots measuring 37 by 50 ft for shs 12 to 13 million with gullible buyers being duped to buy government land.
KFS has warned anybody buying forest land that “forest excision must be first approved by parliament and that any other move is blatantly illegal”.
Recently Forestry CS Keriako Tobiko oversaw the eviction of over 40,000 families who had illegally settled in the Mau forest.
He recently warned those in government land to vacate immediately.
Officials of the Ngong Forest Association also termed Sunvalley developments illegal and said they are working with KFS to reclaim the grabbed land.
Once KFS moves, Financial institutions who have used the parcels as collateral are going to be major victims as well as senior government officers who willingly settled there despite knowing its grabbed land.
KFS chairman Peter Kinyua said there was no degazetment of the said forest area so it’s still forest land and any alleged subsequent allocation is null.
“Ngong Road Forest was gazetted through proclamation No. 44 of 1932 and became a Central Forest Reserve through Legal Notice No. 174 of 1964. The forest is made up of 5 forest blocks one of which is Bomas block part of which was in the past illegally subdivided and issued out. Kenya Forest Service has resisted developments on this forestland and is currently working with investigative and legal process to reposes and reafforest all the illegally allocated land parcels. Any alleged allocation is therefore illegal,” Kinyua told Hot News.
The KFS Chairman insisted that Forest land must be degazetted by Parliament otherwise any title is illegal.
