Economy

Darkwood files Sh40bn suit for Embakasi barracks land

mumbi

Lady Justice Mumbi Ngugi directed Darkwood Investment to serve Attorney-General Githu Muigai who has been sued on behalf of the State. PHOTO | FILE

The location of the Kenya Defence Forces’ (KDF) Embakasi Barracks has come under a serious legal challenge after a firm moved to court, claiming ownership of the 988-acre land on which the facility stands.

Darkwood Investment says in suit papers filed in court that it has in custody the legal titles for the land that is now valued at Sh40 billion.

The company has accused the Department of Defence (DoD) of grabbing the land it bought from the Nairobi City Council for Sh40 million in 2001.

Darkwood further claims that the DoD had on many occasions agreed to hand over the entire parcel of land back to its rightful owners, but nothing has come of it yet.

Darkwood now wants the court to kick the State out of the land and the developments on it brought down or in the alternative be awarded the Sh40 billion it claims to be the current value of the land.

“Before the unlawful invasion there was no prior action by the National Government to compulsorily acquire Darkwood Investments’ 988 acres of land. The DoD has now commenced some construction and has neither compensated Darkwood nor paid any money for the said use,” the firm said.

The land in dispute is part of the 2,268 acres that the Army occupies in Embakasi. Darkwood insists that it is the legal owner of the land.

Lady Justice Mumbi Ngugi directed the firm to serve Attorney-General Githu Muigai who has been sued on behalf of the State. Both Darkwood and the Attorney General will appear before the judge on December 1.

Darkwood claims that the DoD has ignored several requests to desist from encroaching further on the land, and has fenced it with a perimeter wall that is guarded by armed military personnel round the clock.

“Darkwood has on several occasions requested the DoD to desist from trespassing on the land, but it has continued with the trespass. The encroachment was done by DoD for its own purposes without following procedures as laid down in the Land Acquisition Act,” the firm says.

Darkwood’s director, Kenneth Kiptoo Boit, accuses the DoD of using its influence to possess the land without compensating the owners whose allotment of the land has never been revoked by the county government.

Mr Boit claims that Darkwood purchased the land with the intention of constructing residential buildings, something it is now unable to do as it has been denied access to the land.

“The intention of purchasing the said land was to develop residential houses for commercial sale. As a result of the military encroachment it is extremely difficult to develop the land in view of the military presence,” Mr Boit added.

Mr Boit has been a part of the dispute over the years, as he is a former director of a firm that was in 2011 awarded Sh1.5 billion as compensation for a 90-acre fraction of the land that hosts the Embakasi Barracks.

After the successful push for the Sh1.5 billion another businessman, Anthony Kegode, moved to court seeking to stop the award arguing that Mr Boit and three other businessmen were no longer directors of Torino and had no capacity to file the suit on behalf of the company.

The Embakasi Barracks has over the years attracted controversy, most recently in 2011 when the High Court ordered the government to pay Torino Enterprises Sh1.5 billion for a 90-acre fraction on the same land.