State seeks to end Sh655m row at cooperative society
Cooperatives commissioner David Obonyo will lead a team of administrators, politicians and shareholders in an effort to resolve a row pitting Kagaa Farmers Cooperative Society in Murang’a and government liquidators who have slapped members with Sh306,000 fee for each title deed.
Shareholders have argued that the charge is possibly the most expensive for a title deed for a 40 by 90 feet plot. The society has 2,141 of such plots, thus, the figure is coming to Sh655 million.
Mr Obonyo’s intervention was mooted after the Cooperatives Department said the 57-year-old society’s books of account can only be balanced by raising the Sh655 million. It then sent liquidators Mr Peter Wanjohi and Mr Fondo Nzovu in February 2017.
The problem with the shareholders is that no breakdown of the bill was tabled in any collective meeting and already rumours are that there are plans to sue them over undisclosed liabilities.
The society owns two farms in Murang’a County named Kabuku Estate, which is 500 acres, Santamore Estate 2,000 acres, as well as one plantation that is 4,167 acres in Kilifi County. A 2019 blanket valuation report of the ranch put an acre at an average of Sh8 million. Thus, all the acreage undeveloped was valued at Sh4 billion then. Most of the shareholders have since developed their plots pushing up the value up.
“I am joining the negotiation teams on the ground. We want to consolidate our efforts to approach this dilemma from a single front. We have a series of meetings and on November 9, we will congregate on the ground to pursue an amicable solution,” Obonyo said.
Forensic audit of society
President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has been petitioned by the shareholders to intervene in the crisis, will be represented by Murang’a South deputy county commissioner, Mr Mawira Mungania.
In the July 10 petition to the president, the shareholders also complained that members who had settled in the Kilifi Plantation Farm were evicted by the 1992 tribal clashes and despite numerous petitions they have never been facilitated to resettle.
“The issue has taken a new dimension since shareholders cannot raise the titling fee. It is same as announcing that you want to dispossess them. I am representing the Office of the President here on the ground in the search for a solution,” Mr Mungania said.
The administrator said local politicians have also expressed interest in being part of the deliberations. Shareholders have complained that some administrators, politicians, surveyors and Ministry of Land officials have colluded to grab the land.
Mr Gacheru Manyanga, their spokesman, said, “What we have here is a powerful cartel that after finding it hard to steal our land, wants to rob our pockets by tricking us to part with a high titling cost.”
Mr Mungania said part of the agenda is to have the liquidators explain how they arrived at the titling cost even when the shareholders insisted that the government should first carry out a forensic audit of their society. BY DAILY NATION
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