Economy

Media tycoon fights Kenyatta kin over prime Nairobi land

Media tycoon SK Macharia has escalated his protracted land dispute with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cousin, Ngengi Muigai, with the filing of a case in court seeking to stop the National Land Commission (NLC) from adjudicating the matter.

Mr Muigai has since 1991 fought Mr Macharia and two other businessmen — JG Kibe and Solomon Wilson Karanja — for allegedly denying him his equal share or 25 acres of a 100-acre piece of land near Nairobi’s Karura Forest.

Mr Muigai, Mr Macharia, Mr Kibe and Mr Karanja were directors of Sceneries Limited, the company that purchased the land in 1988, but Mr Muigai claims his co-directors later kicked him out of the company and denied him his share of the land.

The NLC in November last year began investigations into how Sceneries, under the ownership Mr Macharia and Mr Kibe, acquired a title deed for the prime city property, which they then sold to the Kenya Reinsurance Corporation in 1997 for Sh550 million.

Mr Macharia has moved to court to quash the ongoing adjudication of the matter by the NLC, claiming that the process started without his involvement and that Mr Muigai’s witnesses testified against him without his presence.

Mr Muigai has, however, asked the court to dismiss the petition on grounds that Mr Macharia was not only aware of the proceedings but even participated in them.

“Although Sceneries Limited claims to have been unaware of the proceedings before the NLC, it has substantially participated in them and gone ahead to file substantive submissions in reply of the complaint and is therefore stopped from challenging the procedures and/or orders made thereof. Sceneries has failed to disclose to this court any alternative remedy before instituting this application,” Mr Muigai says.

The proceedings before the NLC were initiated on the strength of a complaint by Mr Muigai. But Mr Macharia obtained a court order stopping the probe, pending the hearing of his application.

Mr Macharia is the founder and sole proprietor of Royal Media Services, which owns Citizen TV and a host of vernacular radio stations.
He has sued the NLC and enjoined Mr Muigai and Kenya Re as interested parties in the petition.

The media mogul maintains that he only participated in the NLC proceedings from March 16, long after the inquiry began.

Kenya Re is yet to respond to the suit.

Forced to refund Kenya Re

The NLC is the agency that is charged with interrogating land dealings that are suspected to have been acquired irregularly from the government. 

Mr Macharia says in his petition that he will be forced to refund Kenya Re the Sh550 million it paid him for the land should the NLC rule that the 1997 sale was unlawful.

Mr Muigai — a former MP for Gatundu — adds in his objection that the court will be interfering with the NLC’s constitutional mandate if it stops the inquiry into the 1997 land deal between Mr Macharia and Kenya Re.

Mr Macharia insists that President Kenyatta’s cousin has no basis for questioning the 1997 transaction as he is neither a previous owner of the plot nor a shareholder of Sceneries.

“There is no privity of contract between Sceneries, Kenya Re and Mr Muigai. He has no basis questioning a transaction made by Sceneries and Kenya Re 19 years ago,” the media mogul says.

Mr Macharia, however, holds that Mr Muigai and the NLC held the proceedings in secret and that he only found out in January and instantly applied for enjoinment.

READ: Uhuru kin entangled in SK Macharia and NLC land probe

The businessman says that the commissioner of land who issued the grant that allowed Sceneries to sell the land to Kenya Re should have been enjoined in the NLC proceedings.

Mr Macharia in a 2004 suit against the Attorney-General claimed that Mr Muigai and Mr Karanja were shareholders of Sceneries L, but were unable to contribute capital that would have enabled them to earn their equal stake in the firm, forcing the media mogul and Mr Kibe to strike them out.

They were also removed as directors of Sceneries.

Documents filed in court show that Mr Muigai and Mr Macharia have been engaged in numerous court cases over the disputed land since 1991.

One of Mr Muigai’s witnesses in the NLC proceedings claimed in a statement that one of the three pieces of land measuring five acres and consolidated under title deed number 12236 was fraudulently carved out of Karura Forest during former President Jomo Kenyatta’s tenure.

Private investigator Antony Macharia says in his statement to the NLC that Mr Macharia and another Sceneries director, Mr Kibe, irregularly acquired the title deed that was revoked by President Jomo Kenyatta and used the deed to dupe Kenya Re into paying Sh550 million for the land.

The private investigator says the Kenyatta family owned 95 acres of the land, and sold it to Sceneries 10 years after the death of President Jomo Kenyatta in 1978.

Kenyatta senior is said to have bought the 95 acres from Joreth Limited, and Mr Macharia in the 2004 suit held that his firm bought the land from the First Family after it had been amalgamated with another five acres.

The media mogul has protested at not being allowed to cross-examine the three witnesses who have testified before the NLC — Mr Muigai, the private investigator (Antony Macharia) and John Kamwere. He holds that the NLC inquiry has no procedural rules, making it difficult for him to present a defence.

Mr Muigai holds that the media mogul does not specify which right of his has been violated as is required of all petitions filed in the Constitutional and Human Rights division of the High Court.

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