Members of the National Assembly have re-awakened a property dispute case against a politician's family residing at the Coast.
A report by Business Daily on Monday, January 4, indicated that the lawmakers led by Lunga MP Khatib Mwashetani tabled a petition seeking the lands authority to open investigations into the parcel of land owned by the family of the late politician Mohamed Mwinyihaji Bwika.
The MP is seeking to have the committee on land revoke a title deed allegedly issued to a company at the Coast.
Mwashetani claimed that the State had in 1972 planned to construct the Diani Complex, but shelved the plans and relocated the project to Kwale.
All plots are said to have been allocated to families at the Coast including the Bwika family.
“I, the undersigned, on behalf of the family of the late Mohamed Mwinyihaji Bwika, draw the attention of the House to the following: -that, the family possesses title deeds to four land parcels with the exception of LR No. 13444 DIANI BEACH regarding which efforts for issuance of a title deed has taken over 40 years of applications and unmitigated delays.
“Unfortunately, government officials who seemed bent on defrauding and dispossessing the Coastal natives of their land undertook an elaborate and sustained scheme to frustrate land owners who applied for their respective title deeds,” stated the MP
He further claimed that some officials had received allocations of the land of which Bwika's family held the title deed for.
"The Bwika family later learnt that their plot had been irregularly subdivided and allocated to a senior government official under a new plot number, and was thereafter included in the title deeds issued by the government to the adjacent Kongo Mosque plot,” the lawmaker added.
Bwika was a senior government official during the late President Daniel Moi's era and his family has expanded to over 100 members.
Mwashetani confirmed that the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission published a Gazette notice noting that Bwika family was the official owner of the parcel.
