KICC land dispute: MPs summon Land CS Wahome, NLC boss Tache
By Apollo Ochieng |
The dispute currently pits KICC against the Office of the President and the Nairobi City County Government.
A committee of the National Assembly has summoned Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome and National Lands Commission Chief Executive Officer Kabale Tache to appear before it over a dispute on the ownership of two strategic parcels of land within the Kenyatta International Convention Center (KICC).
The National Assembly Public Investments Committee on Commercial Affairs and Energy on Thursday expressed concerns over the delay in resolving the dispute which currently pits KICC against the Office of the President and the Nairobi City County Government.
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Committee chairperson, David Pkosing directed that the two officials appear before the team on Thursday next week to shed more light on the stalemate.
This emerged during a roundtable meeting between the committee, the KICC management, NLC officials and representatives from the Ministry of Tourism on Thursday regarding the stalemate reported by the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) in the Convention's audited accounts for the 2020/21 financial year.
According to the OAG, the Nairobi County Government is laying claim to the land at KICC adjacent to Harambee House that hosts Garden Square Restaurant.
Public monument
The Auditor-General further raised concerns about a letter drafted by the Head of Public Service during the year under review, indicating that the Comesa Grounds adjacent to the Supreme Court which hosts the iconic portrait of founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta had been gazetted as a public monument.
Pkosing noted this was a serious query as KICC stands to suffer hefty losses in assets if the two parcels are not placed under KICC's ownership, as they are not included in the stated value of the land totalling Sh2.2 billion which only relates to the block where the main building tower stands.
"This is a very weighty issue. Everybody including my constituents in the village knows KICC is government land. We must speedily get to the bottom of this matter," said Pkosing who is also the Pokot South MP.
According to KICC acting CEO Patricia Ondeng, the Convention's management had written to NLC for allocation of the contentious land on July 8, 2022, but is yet to receive any formal response.
She told the committee that further efforts to formally allocate the land surrounding the tower block had also proved futile.
MPs noted that ownership and management of the KICC as well as its surrounding land space was a matter of national security.
This is because the land sits on what has been demarcated as a government square, comprising spaces adjacent to Parliament, the Office of the President, the Supreme Court and other key government offices within Harambee Avenue.
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