The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji has unearthed a scheme allegedly used by former National Land Commission Chairman Muhammad Swazuri and his team to pocket up to Ksh54 million by inflating land prices.
In a report by The Standard, the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) had asked the NLC to acquire a piece of land for the construction of the Southern By-pass in 2013.
According to the DPP, however, the company declined an initial settlement of Ksh34 million by the NLC following a valuation carried out in 2015.
Swazuri later ordered for a fresh evaluation of the parcel and in 2017, its value had more than doubled to stand at Ksh109 million.
“The team returned a staggering figure of Ksh109.7 million for the same parcel of land in January 2017,” stated Mr Haji.
The DPP further revealed that KeNHA remitted all the funds to NLC but only Ksh54.5 million was forwaded to the managers of the company that was to offer the land.
The rest, according to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), was paid to NLC officials and their relatives as kickbacks.
“The remaining Sh54.5 million was paid to the accounts of CW Chege Advocates, who then distributed the money to officials of the land commission by way of kickbacks for facilitating the inflated payment,” stated EACC.
Swazuri was arrested on Wednesday April 17, alongside several other former NLC officials, in connection with the controversy surrounding the KeNHA compensation.
He was expected to be arraigned in court on Thursday April 18 to answer to corruption charges.
