Cartels Grab 217 Acres of Land Belonging to JKIA

The National Lands Commission (NLC) says that Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) has lost more than 217 acres of land to private developers and grabbers.

NLC Vice Chairperson Abigael Mbagaya says over 119 title deeds have been given to the cartels without the knowledge of the commission or the Ministry of Land.

“There are two kinds of people we are dealing with; some inside the airport who got the titles just before JKIA got theirs, and others who were creating titles on top of the JKIA title,” Ms Mbagaya says.

The commission says a huge sector of the land that has been grabbed sits on the site where a second runway is planned to be set up.

Among companies that have illegally acquired parcels belonging to the airport include Hunting Aerospace and two other unnamed firms.

“But the long and short of it is that there is a lot of public utility land in the wrong hands, and JKIA is just one of them,” says Mbagaya adding that titles issued illegally will be revoked.

The commissioner says the companies have failed to give convincing answers on how they acquired the land but have requested for “more time to file a response”.

“They appeared and requested to be given time to respond to claims by JKIA, which had reported that the land had been given to the airport many decades ago and it got a title for the entire land measuring 4,674.6 hectares,” Ms Mbagaya adds.