Kenya Railways bought a dust patch in Sultan Hamud and abandoned it
The Kenya Railways Corporation spent Kes21.7 million to buy land for a train station in Sultan Hamud then changed the route of the Standard Gauge Railway only to leave the vast dust land vacant.
Details of a special audit show that KRC had initially planned to set up a train station at Sultan Hamud.
The corporation then changed its mind after wasting state resources on buying and abandoning land further raising doubts behind the motivation to spent millions on the property.
The Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu said the 12.8 hectares acquired by Kenya Railways was tax payer money lost.
“During the field inspection conducted at Emali and Sultan Hamud in Makueni County was that KRC had initially acquired land of 12.98Ha for construction of a station at Sultan Hamud but later re-designed the SGR route resulting in relocation of the station,” Mrs Gathungu said.
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“There was no explanation given for relocation of the SGR route,” she said.
The audit on the National Land Commission (NLC) payments of billions of shillings as land compensation threatens to reveal shady deals behind expensive debt funded infrastructure boom that has created overnight millionaire speculators.
Working with state officials, the property owners have inflated land prices and at times even sold the government its own land as officials look the other way.
Mrs Gathungu said there was rampant cheating causing overcompensation, double compensation and even false claims.
The auditor general said Kes9.5 billion spent on buying land for the SGR, Lamu port, highways and urban roads as well as Tanathis’s Thwake dam may have been state property bought by NLC.
