Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi on Thursday directed Kenyans living on government land to relocate ahead of imminent eviction.
Speaking in Mombasa during his first-ever visit to the Kenya Pipeline Refinery Limited (KPRL) and Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) facilities in Mombasa, Wandayi revealed that the government has reignited its efforts to evict illegal occupants from land belonging to KPRL in the Port Reitz area of Mombasa County.
Owing to this move, Wandayi directed all squatters living adjacent to the KPRL facility in Kipevu and Portreiz to relocate.
"At Kipevu oil storage and KPRL Portreiz we have a problem. A five-acre piece of land has been invaded and illegally occupied by people. I’m committed to resolving it once and for all,” Wandayi said.
The CS went on to reveal that the occupants were posing a danger to themselves apart from living in an illegal space.
"Ultimately if that does not happen for whatever reason we are under a moral and legal obligation as a government to ensure that place is cleared just to save lives and also to protect the strategic national facility, "
According to Wandayi, the parcels of land the squatters occupy are just at the foot of the oil pumps linking with the mainline that pumps oil to Nairobi.
The CS revealed that the State will give reason a chance, further revealing that the national government will work closely with the County Government of Mombasa, the local political leadership, and the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, to find a mechanism for ensuring the squatters vacate the land.
The squatters have occupied the land since 1965. In 2013, Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited (KPRL) won a case against the squatters who invaded the land where the pipelines pass.
Three major KPRL pipelines for crude oil, refined oil, and gas pass through Port Reitz to Changamwe. Mombasa High Court Judge Maureen Odero issued an injunction against the squatters' continued occupation of the land observing that the occupants were there illegally and needed to vacate.
In the ruling, the judge noted that their occupation posed a danger to their own lives.
The squatters, fighting the eviction, said they had acquired the land by way of adverse possession and built homes, schools, and mosques on it.
