A piece of land attached to Kenya Railways has been recovered in Mombasa County, years after it was unlawfully allocated to private entities.
The land, valued at Ksh50 million, was found to have been irregularly transferred to a real estate company in 2011.
The EACC revealed that the land, which covers approximately 0.0873 hectares, had historical ties to Kenya Railways and included structures originally developed by the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation in the 1950s.
Among the structures housed on the prime piece of land, located along Pwani Road near the junction with David Kayanda Road, were a four-bedroom house and a garage.
Despite its association with Kenya Railways, the land was controversially transferred to a real estate developer. Following investigations, the EACC filed a recovery suit at the Environment and Land Court in Mombasa in 2020.
This led to a consent agreement being signed with the developer, whose company agreed to surrender the property to the state for proper registration in favour of the Kenya Railways Corporation.
In addition to the surrender of the land, a permanent injunction was also issued by the court, barring the developer from transferring, alienating, or dealing with the land in any other way.
The company was also compelled to cancel the original certificate of lease. The land registry will therefore have to rectify the lease to reflect Kenya Railways as the rightful owner.
This was yet another landmark case in which the EACC recovered land belonging to the state that was primarily meant for infrastructural projects.
A week earlier, still in Mombasa County, the EACC recovered an extremely valuable parcel belonging to the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), which was allegedly illegally acquired by a former Coast Province physical planner.
Court findings indicate that the land, valued at Ksh104 million, had originally been set aside for public use, but was unlawfully allocated to private entities using the former government official's influence.
Before that, in June, 12 parcels of grabbed public land worth Ksh320 million were recovered in Bungoma and Kakamega counties.
