Nairobi News

The defunct Nairobi City Council secretly sold an estate to a provident fund at Sh1.4 billion without even informing the legal department, a meeting was told on Tuesday.

County Secretary Lilian Ndegwa told the meeting convened by the assembly’s Public Accounts Committee that Mariakani Estate in Eastlands was sold to the Local Authority Pension Fund (Lapfund) to clear money owed to the fund.

And the property, Ms Ndegwa admitted, was devalued although the county’s chief valuer, Mr Isaac Nyoike could not give the acreage of the land where the estate is situated or its exact value.

LOST PROPERTIES

“We have moved to court and we are trying to settle the matter outside court by trying to re-evaluate the whole estate,” Ms Ndegwa told the meeting where it also emerged that the City County has lost several properties to private developers.

According to Mr Nyoike, Mariakani Estate was transferred to Lapfund, which manages retirement benefits of employees of county governments, in 2012 and the title for the property was issued in 2013 before the General Election.

These are the elections that led to the devolved governments.

The county secretary and her team who were answering questions from PAC members on the County’s Financial Statement prepared by the Auditor-General said despite transferring the estate to Lapfund, City Hall was still collecting rent from the tenants.

NOT AWARE

However, a representative of the Legal Department at City was not aware about the transfer of the estate not even about the case in court.

Ms Ndegwa tried to argue that the estate was sold via a resolution of the council but the PAC chairman, Mr Robert Mbatia, said he served the defunct local authority and he was not aware of such a resolution.

The county secretary could also not provide documents showing there was such a resolution.