Machakos Deputy Governor Francis Mwangangi has sounded a warning to land grabbers eyeing public land in the county. Mwangangi said unscrupulous people had resorted to grabbing public land in the county while invoking names of senior leaders to intimidate county officials. While addressing the press Wednesday outside his office,the deputy governor said the county government will not tolerate acts of illegal land acquisition and will deal with grabbers firmly. ‘We will not entertain such people and we will make sure any grabbed land has been returned to its rightful owners, ‘he said. He singled out Mavoko and sections along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway as some of the areas where the cases were rampant. ‘In Mavoko the land registry was transferred and 90 percent of those that engineered the transfer are land grabbers,’ revealed the deputy governor. The DG prevailed on the cabinet Secretary for Lands to have the registry reverted for easy management of land issues in the area. ‘We are also asking the national government to collaborate with the county government to protect public land in the county,’ he said. The deputy governor’s warning comes barely a week after county officials flushed out a private investor alleged to have grabbed 267 acres of public land in Kyumbi along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway.
Source: Kenya News Agency