A section of Gatundu residents have been turned into overnight millionaires in the Mama Ngina University expansion plan.
According to the latest agreement between them and the National Land Commission (NLC), every affected land owner will receive Ksh10 million.
The compensation agreement follows a series of negotiations with NLC to acquire land in Mutomo village for the expansion of Mama Ngina University.
Those affected by the expansion plan will receive Ksh10.1 million for a 100m by 100m parcel of land. The highest landowners in the expansion plan will get Ksh35 million.
However, this is not what the residents were pushing for as they had earlier indicated that they wanted to be paid at least Ksh16 million for their parcels of land.
NLC project team leader, Doricah Buyaki, said that the commission had gone through the inquiries stage and proceeded to award the affected residents.
"We have settled on a Ksh10.1m per piece of land, development rates are per individual and an addition 15 per cent disturbance allowance,” stated Buyaki.
"We had a final meeting on Monday with NLC officials and one of the main issues we discussed was that upon payment, the land owners should vacate their premises within 15 days and leave the structures intact including cow sheds, houses, trees and any other structure since the government will have compensated for everything," she added.
The project manager further explained to the residents that the university is not a property on the Kenyatta family but is set to benefit the entire Kiambu county.
Following the agreement, the residents requested NLC to allow them more time to plan their relocation.
"We are requesting for about three months, we have school-going children and we had just paid fees, also we need to find suitable land and time to construct houses," a resident stated.
