The government moved to repossess a 1,600-acre land in Ruai which has long been associated with Deputy President William Ruto.
The prime land on Kangundo Road in Nairobi, is one of two parcels that has been taken back by the State for the expansion of Nairobi’s main sewerage plant.
“The government today embarked on an operation to repossess over 3,000 acres of the Dandora Estate Waste Sewerage Treatment Plant, located in Ruai, which has been grabbed by private entities,” said a joint statement by Lands and Physical Planning Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri, and his Water, Sanitation and Irrigation counterpart Joseph Irungu.
The PSs named the affected parcels as LR 28706, measuring 1,605 acres, which is owned by Renton Company Limited.
The other parcel is LR 28707, measuring 999 acres. Renton company, which was registered in 1995, was allocated the land by William ole Ntimama, the then Local Government minister.
The firm is associated with Ruto, the son of an influential former Kenya Power and Lighting Company top official, and a prominent city lawyer from the Rift Valley.
The second parcel is registered under Offshore Trading Company Limited, which is owned by former Lugari MP Cyrus Jirongo.
Both Ruto and Jirongo were prominent members of the infamous Youth for Kanu 92 lobby group which was formed to campaign for the re-election of President Daniel Moi in the 1992 multiparty elections.
First commissioned in 1978, the Ruai sewerage plant, which sits on LR 12979/1/1, measuring approximately 1,637.31 acres, is in dire need of expansion. “However, over the years, some groups of people have continued to illegally encroach into the above land taking up most of the land that was meant for the expansion of the treatment works,” said the statement by the PSs.
