Lamu Governor Issa Timamy at a past event. [Photo/ the-star.co.ke]
Lamu Governor Issa Timamy now says residents whose land was acquired for the construction of county headquarters in Mokowe will not be compensated.Instead, the residents will only be compensated for the crops and trees that were uprooted from their land at the time of acquisition."We have people claiming that the land housing the county headquarters belongs to them. We will therefore only pay for the crops and trees, which were on the land when we acquired it,” he said.The payments, noted the county boss, will be factored in the next financial year's budget.“We will just give them something small and people shouldn’t therefore expect an amount such as that given for land acquired for the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport project or the coal plant,” he warned.According to The Star, the county government of Lamu has already moved its headquarters from Lamu Island to the Mokowe offices.On Wednesday, the governor said records from the defunct municipal council showed the land had already been earmarked for the county headquarters and hence, they won't pay for it.The Sh220 million building which took two years to construct, houses the governor and his seven county executives.