The Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) has warned that close to 200 land owners risk losing billions in a land compensation deal.
Ketraco stated that it could not trace owners of 338 acres piece of land located in Laikipia, Meru, Isiolo and Kajiado counties.
The pieces of land will allow passage of three voltage transmission lines and the building of the 132-kilovolt Nanyuki-Isiolo-Meru transmission line covering 96 kilometres.
According to the Energy Act, section 171 and 173, it is mandatory for utility firms to ask for owner's consent before entering and laying cables or electric poles, petroleum or gas pipelines, or drilling exploratory wells.
In addition, the law indicates that absentee landowners should be issued with a 15-day notice through an advertisement in the media.
Ketraco has since issued a 30-days' public notice for the absentee land owners, failure to which the agency will use their parcels and pay later at a fee that will be advised after legal counsel.
“Ketraco hereby gives a 30 days’ notice from the date of this advertisement to the project affected persons, that is, the absentee land owners who have not had any contact with Ketraco despite meetings organised in the project areas, to contact Ketraco for purposes of identification and compensation for limited loss of use of land for their affected land parcels,” the agency stated.
The state agency has in a number of occasions landed in trouble over wayleaves with communities that reside along key corridors.
Electricity distribution and connection is key in ensuring the country's socio-economic growth.
Hence, sometimes power firms have found themselves overlooking laid down procedures in a bid to ensure that Kenyans have access to power.
However, this has ended up leading to costly court fines.
