Measuring about 100 acres in Muthaiga, land parcel LR No.12422/9 belonged to former cabinet minister the late Arthur Kinyanjui Magugu, but now has been subdivided and sold to different people.
According to an investigation by the National Land Commission (NLC), directors of Karura Investments Limited (KIL) colluded with a surveyor to change the details of ownership that saw the land subdivided and transferred to the company.
NLC found that the land was sub-divided into two parcels, LR No 12422/203 and LR No. 12422/204, both registered in the name of Magugu.
Later, LR No. 12422/204 was sub-divided into two portions, LR No. 12422/318 and LR No. 12422/319.
LR No. 12422/318 was registered in the name of Magugu and LR No. 12422/319 registered in the name of KIL.
Magugu who died in September 15, 2012 was not involved in the transfer, and neither was his family according to findings by NLC.
“No sale agreement is available as per requirement by law to prove the alleged sale transaction. On February 6 last year (2019), Priscilla Wango of Survey Department wrote a letter referenced HC/NRB/329/2016/VOL.1/6 disowning KIL’s Deed plan and recommended cancellation and recalling of the same,” the report by NLC reads in part.
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“The Deed Plan attached to the forged tittle is irregular and any subsequent documents procured pursuant to the same is technically a nullity.”
At the alleged time of transfer of the land, October 25, 1993, the deed of transfer has franking of stamp duty but during that time, only embossment was done.
The transfer was done and completed in a record speed of three hours, something never seen in the history of land transfers in Kenya.
“We are of the view that it is practically impossible to register a discharge, a transfer, a subdivision, value a parcel of land along Kiambu Road, asses stamp duty and pay the same all in less than three hours. To be specific by 11.27am all that had been done and titles LR 12422/204 and coincidentally LR No 12422/319 issued both on the same day,” the report reads.
At the time of the transaction, KIL had just been incorporated two months earlier, on August 2, 1993.
“The position is that LR 12422/319 is a forgery for the basic reason that Karura Investments Ltd vide the Kenya Gazette Notice No.4169 of June 20, 2014 applied for reconstruction of ‘lost/or destroyed land register’. These acts were an attempt to sanitise the record. It is my opinion that the validity of LR No.12422/319 held by Karura Investments Limited is questionable and we conclude that it is fraudulent,” the report adds.
The land in the custody of Magugu’s widow Margaret Wairimu Magugu has been the target of cartels who want to mint hundreds of millions from the land.
NLC has ordered the land registrar to expunge the title and that police prosecute the directors of KIL.
“There is a convincing explanation in this investigation report to enable the Chief Land Registrar to proceed and expunge and correct the registers and restore the title to the estate of Hon. Arthur Kinyanjui Magugu (deceased),” the report reads.
Magugu, the son of former colonial chief, Arthur Kinyanjui Magugu, served as Githunguri MP from 1969 to 1988.
He served as Minister for Finance from 1982 to 1988.
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