For decades, the government has always grappled with cartels in the city over grabbed parcels of land, some belonging to the public.
Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney, while appearing before Parliament, confirmed that the Ministry was yet to fix the issue of land grabbing, with schools and hospitals among public institutions badly affected.
In what appears to be a move to address the matter, the CS noted that the Ministry had started the process of digitising all title deeds including public spaces as well as those owned by government corporations.
The CS further listed four prime properties including the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) among Nairobi parcels of land without a title deed.
Others are Uhuru Park along Uhuru Highway, Central Park near the University of Nairobi (UoN) and Pumwani Maternity Hospital, the city's largest maternity referral hospital.
“We have identified 1,500 public parcels of land in Nairobi and it will shock you to know that for years, Pumwani Maternity Hospital, the KICC, Uhuru Park and Central Park have no title documents.
"We are now starting titling of public land and digitising the records,” stated Karoney.
Valued at Ksh2.2 billion, the Auditor General Nancy Gachungu revealed that the land on which the iconic KICC tower stands is not registered in the name of the state.
It is, however, not known who owns the land, an issue that Karoney is yet to find answers at Ardhi House, even as her tenure under President Uhuru Kenyatta's government ends in just months.
Other establishments have previously laid claim on the land including the Kenya African National Union (KANU), which was kicked out of the building in 2013.
Pumwani Hospital, on the other hand, has already lost a part of its 10-acre land to vicious city grabbers. There has been uproar from some of the staffers who were illegally evicted from the parcel of land following an ownership row.
Uhuru Park and Central Park have been in the news previously over claims that some businessmen were seeking to hive them off for private development.
During the initial stages of the Nairobi Expressway construction, there was uproar from a section of the public after architectural designs indicated that the Ksh65 billion highway would pass through it.
In December 2021, President Uhuru Kenyatta was also forced to clarify that Uhuru Park had not been grabbed after it was cordoned off and members of the public asked to stay away.
Uhuru assured the public that the construction works at the park were just aimed at giving it a facelift and the land had not been grabbed.
