Kenya’s land-obsessed Deputy President William Ruto has yet again been caught up in an irregular acquisition of a vast ranch near the world famous Maasai Mara National Reserve that belonged to the family of the late Vice President Joseph Murumbi, Kenyan Bulletin can authoritatively reveal.
DCI were closing in on arresting two of Ruto’s close allies, Patrick Osero and Lucas Meso, who helped the DP acquire the land through fraudulent means.
Osero and Meso executed the deal when they were employed as top executives of the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC). A parastatal that has been acused of multiple crime and masterminds den.
According to information in our possession, Osero and Meso used their positions in AFC to facilitate the DP’s acquisition of the land through a proxy company by undervaluing the parcel of land and selling it to a firm specifically incorporated by Ruto’s lawyers as a special purpose vehicle to execute the deal.
According to sources, former VP Murumbi had allegedly defaulted on a Sh8.9 million loan he had taken from AFC in 1985 to finance farming on the same parcel. He was required to repay the loan over 25 years but died in 1990. His family claims the loan balance was written off by government on compassionate grounds following his death.
The prime agricultural land, located 23 kilometres south-west of Kilgoris town, was originally allocated to Murumbi in 1977 by the Narok municipal Council (currently Narok County) and was later officially handed over to him by the then minister for lands and settlements Joshua Angaine who issued Murumbi with a title deed.
Murumbi first borrowed Sh573,875 from AFC which was issued and eventually repaid. Thereafter, a second loan of Sh8.6 million was advanced to Murumbi in 1985 and the land was used as security.
Due to age and ill-health, Murumbi defaulted on the second loan, prompting AFC to demand immediate settlement of the outstanding amount.
When that failed, AFC contracted auctioneers who advertised the property for sale by public auction, and the land was curiously bought by AFC on November 20, 1998 for Sh28 million. Because AFC is 100 percent publicly owned, it meant that the land effectively became public land after that.
However, the family of Murumbi represented by his two elderly brothers dispute this version of events saying the loan balance was written of by former President Daniel Arap Moi.
In 2013, when Jubilee came to power and a buoyant Ruto, eager to amass wealth by any means necessary, quickly facilitated appointment of his allies to top positions at AFC, ostensibly with an eye on properties the corporation owned on behalf of the public, the DP immediately expressed interest in the Murumbi land.
It is then that Osero and Meso connived to help Ruto illegally acquire the publicly owned prime agricultural land for a paltry Sh63 million, a fraction of its market price.
On September 2 2015, Ruto incorporated a proxy firm, NMH Company – registration no CPR/2015/205961- with Kitipa Ole Nashurr and Paul Tapukai ole Mebarni serving as it’s two directors.
Ruto specifically hired local Maasai tribesmen to sit in as proxy directors so as to camouflage himself and also so as not to arise any suspicions.
As if by miracle, just five days after its incorporation, on September 7, 2015 to be precise, NMH Company presented an eye-popping offer to AFC through their advocates Messrs Katwa & Kemboy Advocates of Transnational Plaza in Nairobi.
AFC never conducted a due diligence to establish how two Maasai peasants could suddenly emerge with Sh63 million. Neither did AFC bother to follow provisions of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act at any point in the transaction.
The mysterious offer from NMH Company was promptly accepted by Osero and Meso then working at AFC as Chairman and CEO respectively, and the land quickly changed hands.
Coincidentally, a partner at the law firm Katwa Kigen has been acting as Ruto’s lawyer and confidant for many years and acted as his lawyer during the ICC cases. The offices of Katwa & Kemboy Advocates have been Ruto think-tank andvpolitical secretariat for decades.
The DCI has since established that the land was also massively undervalued and that Osero and Meso have a case to answer. A survey by Kenyan Bulletin indicates Ruto obtained the land at roughly Sh. 63,000 per acre, about 12 percent of it’s true value. Depending on development, five years ago, land market prices averaged between Sh.350,000 and Sh600,000 per acre in the Narok Transmara region.
With Ruto’s allys working at AFC irregularly accepting the misly NMH offer, DP Ruto became owner by proxy of 976 acres of prime agricultural land that once belonged to VP Murungi and was at time of sale, registered as public property.
Osero, a former Youth for KANU 92 member, was once in the news covering for Ruto by falsely claiming ownership of the Weston Hotel which has also since been established belongs to Ruto and was built on grabbed land. Meso on the other hand is an ardent DP ally and has shown interest in running for Busia County Gubernatorial seat.
The DCI opened investigations into the matter after receiving petitions from local communities and elderly brothers of the late Murungi calling for the entire deal to be probed and those found culpable be charged for abetting corruption and violating public procurement laws.
Ruto’s name has been linked to series of land scandals including the controversial grabbing of state land where he put up the Weston Hotel in Nairobi and the grabbing of a parcel belonging to a post-election chaos victim Adrian Muteshi in Uasin Gishu. The DP has since handed back the latter land to the owner in an out-of-court settlement.
Lately, the DCI has also reopened Investigations into a fraudulent land deal in which Tuto allegedly grabbed and sold gazetted forest to Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC) that the State contested was illegally hived off Ngong Forest.