Eva Nyambura
800 homes located in the Ngong Forest will be demolished as government moves to fence off the 3,700 acres of forest cover.
The lavish homes, mostly in Racecourse and Lang’ata, sit on illegally acquired land, Environment CS Keriako Tobiko has revealed.
The affected estates include but not limited to Lang’ata Gardens, Langa’ta View Gardens, Forest Edge, Kenya Medical Association Estate, St Mary’s Hospital, Royal Park, and Sunvalley I and II.
Tobiko urged the land owners who have claimed to have land titles, to surrender or risk “Mau Forest-like wrath”.
“I’m hereby declaring the immediate commencement of the recovery process of the land in the Ngong Road Forest that has over the years been illegally acquired,” he said.
The CS also noted that his ministry has orders from President Uhuru Kenyatta to revoke titles of “all areas of this forest other than the areas that were validly degazetted and lawfully excised for public purposes”.
“All the other parcels of this forest, whether the people on them have title deeds or not, whether they have built houses and apartments or business structures on them or not, will have their titles revoked.”
The Nation notes that in 1932, the forest measured 7,239 acres. But after independence, the forest had shrunk to 3,722.5 acres.
14 years later, Ngong Forest had shrunk even further to some 3,274.57 acres.
According to Kenya Forest Service (KFS) chief surveyor, Evans Kegode, there are plans to steal more land.
“We’re privy to further intentions to hive off an additional 409 acres from the forest,” he said.
“We’ll not bother ourselves taking anybody to court. Whoever holds a purported title knows it is not worth the paper it is written on. So don’t wait for us to fence you in,” he continued.
On June 2, KFS revealed that at least 789 out of 1224.4 hectares of Ngong Forest had been grabbed by developers and land racketeers.
According to the agency, hundreds of Kenyans have been duped and swindled of millions of shillings in exchange for forest land.
“Much of the land that is purportedly up for sale by crooks there is part of Ngong Forest land which will be reclaimed. It is just a matter of time and it will not matter what is on the land, it will eventually revert to the KFS. It won’t matter what sits on the forest land when we come for it. We’ll take all of what belongs to the forest,” KFS Chief Conservator of Forests Julius Kamau warned.
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