MP calls for probe into alleged land grabbing in Timau

An MP from Meru has claimed that several parcels of public land have been grabbed by private investors in Buuri Sub-County and wants an audit carried out to establish who stole it.

Buuri MP Mugambi Rindikiri said influential individuals have grabbed land meant for building schools and hospitals and demanded that the county and the National Land Commission intervene to reclaim the land.

The MP said catchment areas have not been spared with hundreds of acres of forest land having been fraudulently allocated to influential people, politicians and land officials.

CHURCH

He also accused some church leaders whom he did not name of claiming ownership of a 16-acre piece of land in Kathima Location where a school was to be built.

“We are talking of tens of acres of public land that have been grabbed especially in Timau area and we want it repossessed. I once followed up a case of a grabbed public plot and was informed it was sold by a politician to a third party,” the MP said.

With hundreds of acres of untitled land yet to be surveyed, Timau has become a target for land grabbers who falsify documents to claim land ownership.

PETITION

Last year, the Lands Parliamentary committee visited Ontulili where residents had claimed 2,400 acres of their land was grabbed.

The committee was investigating claims after 1,435 residents filed a petition through Mr RIndikiri.

Private developers had also claimed ownership of a 12-acre piece of land where a secondary school is built and were threating the management with eviction.

Mr Rindikiri said he would petition the national government to set up a registry in Timau that will sort out land problems in the vast sub-county.