As Kituians still can’t comprehend why their governor has not yet sacked his brother-in-law health CO Aggrey Kamba after Kitui Newspaper exposed how he conspired to steal around 5 million Meant for a modern drug store at KCRH, Dr. Julius Malombe and his cronies have hatched a secret ploy to grab 3,000 acres of Yatta B2 Ranch land, right under the noses of the oblivious Kitui citizens!
Kitui Newspaper sleuths have gone deep undercover to unearth the carefully-orchestrated plans that will see Kituians lose the biggest tract of public land since independence. This is a tale of intrigue and genius heist that will only benefit the first family and a few top government officials in the Malombe regime. And so the story goes:
On 30th June 2023, Rose Mutuku, the CECM for Trade and Industry in Kitui County met a Joint Committee of the Management and Supervisory committees of Yatta B2 Ranching and Co-operative Society Ltd with a sole purpose:- to grant the Kitui County Executive sweeping powers to identify and excise 1500 Acres of land from the Society’s leased land at Kanyoonyoo for establishment of a ‘Special Economic Zone’ in return for a myriad of favours from the County government.
Among the favors included waivering of accumulated land rates worth 20 Million and the committee members be secretly allocated 1,500 acres of land at Katoteni for their private ranches and sponsoring the setting up of their own private economic zone. The committee members also demanded for allocation of parcels of land inside the ‘special economic zone.(Take a note of the committee, I’ll tell you more about it in a bit). The committee also stressed on the need to be granted audience with the Governor of Kitui County Dr. Julius Malombe.
The County Government, through the CECM Lands, Housing and Urban Development Frederick Kimanga then directed the District Surveyor to move to the ground, Identify and excise a Total of 1500 Acres for the said purpose sometime in November 2023.
The county government, under the instructions of CECM Frederick Kimanga, then proceeded to clear a cut line perimeter of 3,000 acres ready for fencing; an extra 1,500 acres from the illegally acquired 1,500.
The news somehow leaked to a public defender who moved to court to petition the planned land grabbing, poking holes into the manner in which the land was acquired and the social -environmental impact of such a project. The petitioner sued the county government of Kitui for unconstitutional, unlawful and illegal transgressions in alienating public land unprocedurally and contrary to the law. He pointed out that no proper public participation was done prior to the privatisation of public land, and no environmental social impact assessment was conducted before turning such a vast ecosystem into a concrete jungle. The petitioner further pointed out the invalidity of the committee, disclosing that the Yatta B2 Ranching and Co-operative Society Ltd lastly held its annual general meeting and elections for committee on 18th December 2021, so they were not legally in office and didn’t possess any powers to make such a major decision on behalf of the members. This is also in total contravention of the law, which requires all Sacco societies to conduct AGMs, file annual returns to the county department of cooperatives and elect their representative committee every year. This has not been done for years, to the full knowledge of the county government of Kitui, so the Governor was fully aware that he was dealing with committee that was illegitimately in office and therefore could not legally transact the affairs of the society. In such a monumental transaction, all society members should have been fully notified through a special general meeting or an AGM to unanimously ratify, something that was intentionally overlooked.
Following this legal suit, the CECM Lands, Housing and Urban Development Frederick Kimanga swore an affidavit terming the petitioner as politically motivated and harbouring a personal vendetta. The minister also arrogantly pointed out that the petitioner neither owned any parcel of land in the ranch, neither was he a member of the Yatta B2 Ranching and Co-operative Society Ltd. In layman’s language: “shamba inayoibwa si ya mama yako…”
Mr. Kimanga further proceeded to share in court attendance registers for a purported “public participation” allegedly held on the 2nd November 2023, whose partipants majorly included the prime beneficiaries-to-be; a few nominated mcas, top county executive members, top clergy in the county and top security bosses. The other few ‘public members’ in the list are either cooked data or pro-government stooges. According to Section 10 of the Kenyan Constitution 2010, security bosses, clergy and top government executive members don’t actively participate in public participation,rather it’s the community who give their views. They should rather only moderate and take the views of the community on any public matters.
However, it has emerged that the county commissioner, the county commander, DCI bosses, National Police Service bosses, the catholic clergy and Malombe’s top executive members dominated the participant register.
Then money started changing hands! In diverse unspecified dates late last and earlier this year, the Ministry of Trade Director for Industry Mr Fernandes Mbindu is alleged to have collected sums to the tune of 40 million from various interested contractors as bribes to award them the tender for construction of the ‘special economic zone’. He was allegedly working as the proxy for the trade minister and her husband Eric Mulevu who’s the DCC in Kikuyu. Currently, the case still under investigation by DCI.
The minister lands Frederick Kimanga however delt them a silent blow, allegedly promising the tender to some Somali contractors in return for among other things, fencing his massive private ranch in Ukasi, Mwingi. The fencing of the Ukasi Ranch by the Somali contractors is already underway as this goes to print.
After the cartels learnt that a public defender had filed a case in court challenging the land grabbing, a new plan was hastingly hatched to phase out the current committee and replace it with friendly caretaker committee that would ratify the transfer of the ranch land.
According to a letter seen by our reporter, the former Kitui Central member of parliament Titus Mbathi wrote to the governor on Wednesday 13th February 2024 requesting for the caretaker committee to be hastily formed
Governor Malombe convened an emergency secret meeting in Nairobi on Thursday 14th March, a day after, with CECMs, county solicitor and other senior government officials. Another group of ‘friends of Yatta B2’ calling themselves Nairobi B2 Stakeholders, whose chair is Titus Mbathi was also in attendance. This team also included the current Kitui Central MP and 2027 Kitui County gubernatorial hopeful Hon. Makali Mulu, Kitui Rural MP Hon. Bonnie Mwalika, former county assembly speaker Hon. George Ndoto and one Mr. Roy Mutisya.
During the meeting, the governor gave out Ksh. 200,000 for immediate community mobilization. It was agreed that six buses would be hired to ferry pro-agenda members of the public for the hastily-arranged Yatta B2 Ranching and Co-operative Society Ltd AGM. Malombe also promised that that Village, Ward and Subcounty administrators will be issued with executive directives to mobilize friendly B2 Ranch members who will come to approve the transfer of the 3,000 acres land, throw out the old committee led by Mr. Kimanzi Vundi, and approve the proposed interim caretaker committee. The date for the planned AGM was set on Saturday 23rd March 2023, next weekend!
However, most of the original members of the Yatta B2 Ranch are either long dead or too old to attend the AGM, given or not the short notice for the annual general meeting, so it will be a walk in the park for the cartels to ship in their pro-agenda voters.
Yatta B2 Ranching Corporation was awarded 23,100 acres for ranching by the then county council of Kitui in the 1960s, and the chief condition for the lease being that it should “STRICTLY (be) USED FOR RANCHING PURPOSES ONLY”. The county government only acts as a custodian, holding the land in trust for the public. The corporation’s lease has over thirty years left before its expiry.
Community social activists have sworn to fight Governor Malombe and his land grabbing cartels to the end, vowing to protect the vast ecological system of Yatta B2 land. They’ve expressed fears that such wanton destruction of indigenous natural habitat will not only cause massive human-wildlife conflict but also destroy rare and indigenous forest cover, a huge draw-back from the country’s agenda to increase forest cover by 2030.
Kitui Newspaper 