the wise land investors never hold on to a piece of land for long, its about buying, selling quickly and moving on to the next.

Fresh details by the Chief Lands Registrar F.K. Orioki paint a picture of duplicity by government officials and suggests that only the Director of Survey can give the true position on the matter.

He notes that the land has two title deeds issued to different parties.

One is held by USIU-Africa while the other is in possession of US-based entrepreneur George Kiongera, having bought the land from the former President on June 6 this year.

The land was then part of a bigger tract measuring 294.8 hectares, about 726 acres, and owned by Joreth Limited.

Joreth was associated with powerful politicians of the time, like Njenga Karume, Gerishon Kirima, Duncan Ndegwa and Arthur Magugu.

The vast land was sub-divided into 19 parcels in 1981, and Mr Moi acquired two of them – 12422/18 and 12422/19 – both measuring about 40 acres and was issued with title deeds.

On March 30, 1982, Mr Moi paid Sh600,000 for the two parcels, quite an amount at the time.

Since the land then was marked for agricultural purposes, it was changed from freehold to leasehold allowing the owner to use it for commercial purposes, according to lawyer Ndung’u.

On March 26, 1984, President Moi surrendered the two titles to the government as a requirement for the two plots to be consolidated and a single title deed issued.

The new title deed issued was identified as LR 12597. Records kept by lawyer Ndung’u, USIU-A’s lawyer, show that Mr Moi owned the land until 1988 when he sold it to DPS International Ltd.

However, he revealed that Mr Lewis of DPS International was an Israeli lawyer who was his colleague at Hamilton Harrison &Mathews, the law firm that transacted the alleged transfer of Moi’s property, which the former President says is false.

The sale of the President’s land to DPS, if at all it took place, and considering last month’s transaction, means Mr Moi sold the same piece of land twice.

Documents in possession of lawyer Ndung’u show DPS International Ltd bought 40 acres from Mr Moi, and an additional 20 acres hived off from an adjacent plot owned by former Finance minister Arthur Kinyanjui Magugu and his wife Margaret Wairimu Magugu.

The double transaction, dated November 18, 1988, amounted to Sh10 million.

Eleven years later, the land was in the market again and this time round the buyer was Insurance Company of East Africa (ICEA).

A transfer document seen by the Sunday Nation shows ICEA paid Sh17 million for the land on February 26, 1999.

Three months hardly passed and USIU-A entered into the land market with an interest in the parcel that is causing its administrators sleepless nights two decades later.

For a price of Sh90 million, the university acquired the 60 acres on May 4, 1999, according to the documents.

Fast forward to September 23, 2014 and former President Moi obtained an abstract from Kilimani Police Station in Nairobi after reporting that he lost the original title deed.

He made an application for reconstruction of the lost deed’s file at the land’s registry and also prayed to be issued with a provisional certificate of title.

The former President also swore an affidavit dated October 10, 2014 to support his report. Then Registrar of Lands W.M. Muigai gazetted the loss of Mr Moi’s document on January 16, 2015.

“It is upon this transfer that USIU-A lays claim on the same parcel of land and alleged it had been grabbed from them. Upon perusal of our records we indeed found LR 12597/2 registered to the university. The deed plan was done by surveyor D.M. Wainaina,” the registrar’s report adds.

Dr Kiongera maintains that his lawyers carried out due diligence and the transactions with former President were above board.

He did not meet the former President personally, but says he met his son, Baringo Senator Gideon Moi, and his lawyers.

all land should be owned by the govt and any person willing to develop land should lease it.if you want to sell it, transfer back to govt and the same govt will lease it to someone else. that way there can be a good trail.lakini hapa Kenya ngilu tried to change somethings and alipigwa vita and kicked out.. I don't know how Ethiopia does it but its a success.

a friend from Ghana told me he is buying a plot in accra in a place like langata for 300,000 ksh. what about the same price in Kenya langata?300,000 dollars!!!!!

amidst every poverty encroachment there is a richman flying.somoene's benefitting from all this confusion at lands office

I think the money trail is easier to follow than the paper trail. Moi can say he did not sell the land in 1988 nor did he sign the transfer document but if it can be shown that he received money then he will have to explain what it was for.

This is a classic case of exactly what is wrong with Kenya and why we will remain underdeveloped for a long time:

An empty piece of land is:

Sold for Ksh. 600,000 in 1982
Sold for Ksh. 10,000,000 in 1988
Sold for Ksh. 17,000,000 in February 1999
Sold for Ksh. 90,000,000 in May 1999
Sold for Ksh.500,000,000 in 2016

This is madness. The value of that empty piece of land rose 83,300% in 34 years or an annual compound growth rate of 21.87 % for an empty piece of land!!?? No industry, no development, no work put in it, nothing, just buying it and locking the title in a cabinet and voila, 34 years later it has multiplied 833 times. Something is very wrong.

This is clear evidence that we have a bubble economy. I remember someone doing a similar analysis of house prices in Kieleshwa, Ruda etc.

There is simply no relationship between price and value and a big chunk of the real estate business, it seems, has been grabbed by money launderers.

Clearly something has to pop. The only question is when.