It has emerged that Treasury will spend Sh5 billion to compulsorily acquire Nairobi’s Railways Club as the government seeks land for the Nairobi Expressway Road Project.
According to the Treasury, the land will facilitate and a passenger terminal for matatus coming through Machakos and Lang’ata roads at Railway Golf land off Uhuru Highway. “The Treasury has confirmed that the money is available and that the NLC is finalising the valuation for the compulsory acquisition of Railways Club land,” Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja said while issuing a statement on a petition filed by the pensioners. The government says the Nairobi Expressway is a Sh59 billion project that is meant to decongest the city from perennial traffic congestion.
Is it? Is the project really viable or just another expesive State compensation project?
In March, the government published a gazzette notice listing 56 parcels of land to be acquired for the project.
The list included land belonging to Doshi Holdings, Simba Colt Motors, Next Gen Office Suites, Dyer & Blair Investment Bank, Technical University of Kenya, the University of Nairobi and Kenya Railways Corporation.
In September, the State rudely demolished businesses erected at the Nairobi Lunar Park, those that sit on the edge of Uhuru Park and compulsory acquisition of the land belonging to the Kenya Railways Retirement Benefits Scheme.
“ We are also looking at governance issues and we have asked the Auditor-General to conduct a forensic audit on scheme operations. We have asked a similar audit from the RBA. We want to know how the rent money the scheme has been collecting has been utilised. We also want to know the status of land in which Rahimtulla Trust Building in Upper Hill sits,” Senator Johnson Sakaja said. Members of the retirement scheme had petitioned the Senate to investigate its financial status after it failed to pay pension.
We had published a story highlighting the mega scam at the Kenya Railways Benefits Scheme An artistic impression of the currently on construction Nairobi Expressway
Seoul, South Korea shelved the Expressway and opted for an actual better option. KeNHA had this options but Chinese seem to carry the day in Kenyan infrastructural development. Why?
Where can we access the plan and document that has the names and amounts being dished out? List of the Nairobi Expressway Compensation Project
Any valuation professional or estate agent will tell you that it is impossible to sell these property in the open market.
The only remaing option for the government is compulsory acquisition.
Here is how other influential Kenyans on Twitter had to say about the project that no one clearly see its profitability.
