Members of the National Land Commission have been evicted from their offices after they were broken into by unknown individuals on Sunday, March 1, 2020.
A highly-placed sourced told Kenyans.co.ke that the commission's offices located on the fourth floor of Ardhi House were reportedly accessed and crucial files were taken away.
On Monday, February 2, the commissioners were told to leave without being offered an alternative place to carry out their daily duties.
"It is true that we are out of Ardhi House at the moment, a lot is going on and I wouldn't want to speak further on the same," a source seeking anonymity stated.
The National Land Commission and the Ministry of Lands have been engaged in a power struggle that has spilled into the corridors of Justice.
The eviction is a culmination of a silent yet vicious war that revolves around graft in the delivery of land-related services and control of key functions.
The Ministry of Lands' decision to evict NLC triggered a crisis meeting convened by the commissioners on Tuesday, March 2.
An earlier meeting that had been chaired by NLC chair Gershom Otachi on Tuesday, March 3, which was a follow up to a previous one by NLC CEO Kabale Tache and Lands CAS Gideon Mung'aro on Monday, March 2, had failed to broker a truce.
The eviction and subsequent loss of crucial files forced the commission to write to Judiciary Chief Registrar Anne Amadi, stating that they would be unable to attend to court matters related to the agency.
The commission, whose tenure has been rocked by graft scandals, attributes its failures to the Ministry of Lands which commissioners claim encroaches on its mandate, despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2015.
The Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning had issued a temporary closure notice in February, stating that sections of Ardhi House would be closed for audit of crucial documents.
The notice had further indicated that the office complex had been scheduled to stay closed from the period starting February 24, 2020, to Friday, March 13, 2020.
