‘Uhuru ordered Foreign Affairs office shift to disputed plot’

The government plans to move the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Harambee Avenue to the controversial State House Crescent land that is currently subject of a court case.

Suspended Land secretary Charity Ngilu said the ownership of the land was revoked in January on orders from President Uhuru Kenyatta after the use of that parcel was diverted from its intended use.

Mrs Ngilu noted that the land had been given to then Nairobi City Council to be used as a children’s play ground but that has not been the case.

“We reverted the land in January after a presidential directive that the parcel be used as the headquarters for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Mrs Ngilu on Wednesday.

According to Mrs Ngilu, the grant was on the condition that it be used only as a playground. If not, the grant stated, the land was to revert to the national government.

A company owned by an Ethiopian has sued Mrs Ngilu, the chief land registrar and the director of surveys, and the Nairobi county government accusing them of scheming to grab the land.

She was implicated in the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) corruption dossier that has 175 State officers after Myta Development Limited lodged a complaint over the planned takeover of the land.

Myta has filed a case in court in a bid to reclaim the land, which it says was surrendered to the government by the council and divided into four plots.

The firm alleges that it bought the land from the previous owners of the four plots for Sh30 million and is now aware of a laid plan by Mrs Ngilu and other influential officials to grab it.

It is on the basis of this account and other two cases involving the Waitiki farm and the Karen land that Mrs Ngilu was suspended after President Kenyatta gave a directive to all public officials implicated in corruption cases to step aside.

The report was handed to the Parliament by the President during his state of the nation address last month.