The Swan Centre mall in Kisumu was the scene of drama on Wednesday, September 4, after NYS officers showed up and started setting up a fence, right at the building's doorstep.
Reports by the Daily Nation stated that the spectacle is a culmination of a protracted land dispute between the establishment and Kenya Railways Corporation.
Armed with shovels and construction materials, the officers dug up trenches and went about laying brick and mortar, effectively blocking off the building's entry point.
The tenants who included the Kenya Revenue Authority, Choppies Supermarket among others, watched in disbelief as access to their business premises was cut off.
Back on July 24, 2019, Kenya Railways reportedly circulated a vacation notice, citing the need to make room for the expansion of the Kisumu Port as the main reason.
“You are therefore given one month notice to vacate your business out of Kenya Railways land to pave way for revitalisation, expansion and operationalisation of Kisumu Port,” read an excerpt of the notice served to the owners of the mall at the time.
In July 2019, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) recovered another land parcel belonging to the railway corporation said to have been irregularly allocated to East Africa Legislative Assembly MP Oburu Odinga in Kisumu.
In their statement, the anti-graft body said that an investigation had shown that the allocation was done without the knowledge or consent of the state corporation.
A similar incident was witnessed on August 12, 2019, when Kisumu traders who had encroached on Kenya Railways land, rushed to safeguard their property by vacating their premises before the government stepped in to forcefully evict them.
