Governor Gideon Mungaro said more than 1,228 plots of land in Kilifi County had been confiscated and were in the hands of squatters or private developers.
He said his administration is in the process of reclaiming all expropriated lands belonging to county governments.
Mr Mungaro spoke at his office on Wednesday after receiving the valuation report of two parcels of public land from the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee.
“As a government, we are struggling to acquire land, but a lot of land is being seized. We are sending a warning that we are going to come knocking to get the money back,” the governor said.
“If it falls into private hands, we come and collect it without worrying about the status of the person who acquired it.”
The central government, through the Ministry of Decentralization and the IGRTC, handed over assets previously owned by local governments to county governments.
The assets include two land parcels (one for Kilifi Veterinary Services and one for Social Development Services) and 259 personal assets.
The two plots are valued at Sh700 million and the movable assets are valued at Sh51.6 million.
Kilifi will be the first county to receive assets previously owned by the national government and local government. This builds on President William Ruto's pledge at the 9th National-County Coordination Summit in February 2023 to facilitate the transfer of assets from defunct local governments and local governments related to devolved functions. .
Speaking at the handover, IGRTC Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Kipkirui Chepukwani, commended the Kilifi government for its commitment to supporting and completing the handover and assuming ownership of all inherited assets.
He ordered the county government to ensure that the transferred assets are updated in the property register.
County governments are also responsible for changing ownership.
“We have established a multi-agency team comprised of the Department of State, IGRTC, NTSA, National Treasury, and State Department of Transportation to assist counties in implementing the next steps, including transfers, reregistrations, deregistrations, and disposal of old ones. It's an asset,” Chepkwani said.
He successfully re-registered some of the vehicles registered with various national government agencies and defunct local governments using copies of the ownership documents of the assets identified by the National Transportation Safety Administration (NTSA). He said he did.
The CEO cited some of the gaps identified during the assessment of the assets and called on the national and county governments to take necessary steps to identify and protect the assets.
“Very unfortunately, some of the listed properties are missing on the ground and even some parcels of land have been broken into and looted. We urge you to identify these issues and work with relevant agencies to address them,” he said.
Mr. Mungalo appreciated the efforts of IGRTC to make the handover exercise a success.
“We will use the Social Development Services land handed over today for the construction of the county headquarters. We have set aside 275 million nits to start this project,” he said.
