Ex-Kenya president fined in a 35-year-old land-grab scheme deal

Kenya’s ex-president Daniel Arap Moi, has been fined by a high court in Eldoret in a land-grab scheme deal ,to a tune of $ 9,895,600.The fine was in conjunction with the company he sold the property to in 2007.

Until last week when silence broke loose, the ex-president, 35 years ago forcibly took over a 53-acre piece of land owned by ex-chief Noah Kipngeny Chelugui through a land-grab scheme.24 years later, he sold it to a firm owned by the Jaswant Rai family, Rai Plywood; which has occupied the land since 2007,two years after Chelugui death.

The court subsequently found the former President’s move as illegal and ordered both him and Rai Plywood Limited to pay Chelugui’s family, the current market value of the prime property.Chelugui’s 85-year-old wife Susan and son David sued Moi, Rai Plywood, the District Land Registrar, Uasin Gishu District, the Registrar of Titles and the National Land Commission in 2014.

The District Lands Registrar and Uasin Gishu District on the hand dismissed the claims,arguing that they were “bound by orders from above. On the contrary,the defendants claimed that the suit was a claim for land veiled as a constitutional petition. Had the case been treated purely as a land case, it would have been time-barred because Kenya’s laws provide a 12-year window to sue for such a claim.