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Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) risks losing an expansive land where a major hydro-electric plant is located for lack of title deed, the auditor-general Nancy Gathungu has warned in the company’s latest annual report.
In her assessment, Ms Gathungu says the land on which the 106-megawatt hydroelectric power station, whose construction was completed in 1991, does not have ownership documents, exposing it to grabbers.
As of September, some 20,827 hectares in Turkwel had been intruded, the report states, signalling the urgency for the publicly-traded firm to secure the ownership of the land on the border of West Pokot and Turkana counties.
“Management [of KenGen] provided a letter of allotment for the land signifying progress undertaken in land acquisition of the title deed and explained how emotive the issue of land is in the region. The encroachment poses an impairment risk to the power plant,” Ms Gathungu said.
“Further, there are public facilities on the land, including two schools and a GSU [General Service Unit of the police] Camp. In the circumstances, adequacy measures taken to safeguard public property and critical infrastructure could not be confirmed.”
The KenGen’s power plant located at the Turkwel multipurpose dam, which is also used for irrigation and fishing under the Kerio Valley Development Authority.
The power producer, 70 percent State-owned, joins a number of parastatals that lack ownership documents for some or all of the land they hold.
The National Assembly’s Public Investments Committee (PIC) has in the past flagged various State corporations, including Kenya Airports Authority, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Railways Corporation, Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) and Kenya Wildlife Service.
“The accounting officers of State corporations and the chairperson of the National Land Commission (NLC) should put caveats on all the parcels of State corporations’ land that are in private hands,” the PIC wrote in a 2022.
“NLC should prioritise and expedite resolution of ownership issues surrounding parcels belonging to State corporations.”
KenGen has over the years battled disputes over land ownership in areas where it has built power plants, including Naivasha.
The auditor has sounded a warning in a period it emerged KenGen is yet to be compensated for 2.52 acres in Changamwe that KeNHA compulsorily acquired for dualling of the Mombasa-Mariakani Road. The land was part of a 8.36 acres property.
The NLC determined that KeNHA pays Sh250.62 million for the land, improvements, and a disturbance allowance.
“The disposal of the land has not been accounted for because a proper survey and valuation is yet to be undertaken, and agreement reached with KeNHA on the assessment done by NLC. The company is currently working with KeNHA to resolve the outstanding matters and settlement,” KenGen wrote in the latest annual report.
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