An intrigue has erupted between Gesima area community and the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya (PBK) over a piece of land that was allegedly bought from the community by the board in the 90s before it was reclaimed by the community.
On Wednesday, community leaders, led by former Kitutu Masaba MP Mwancha Okioma, said the land was given voluntarily to the board for use without any formal land transactions.
He said the board, which had since collapsed in the region, did not have the moral authority to reclaim the land since there were no existing documents showing land transactions.
“Sometimes it is quite shocking that some people can go to an extent of claiming a land that was voluntarily given by the community. These are an attempted land grabbing because the society never bought the land,” he said.
“Fencing this land is suicidal. We are actually in the final stages of giving the land back to its original owners,” he said.
However, PBK representative John Wamoto said the land belonged to the board following an agreement by the area community and PBK in 1991 and vowed to go to court to seek justice.
“I am very concerned with what they are saying. We have documents and we cannot allow the community to grab a public land that we agreed upon many years ago,” he said.