It has now emerged that the East Africa Portland Cement Company had in a Facebook post on June 15, 2016, warned the unsuspecting members of the public against buying the said land cautioning that the said parcels were not for sale.
It went as far as erecting billboards to warn the public that the said parcels which were being sold belonged to the company hence the public should be wary before making any purchase.
The controversial sale of the 4,298 acres of land has now seen hundreds of families left in the cold after their homes were demolished by the government on Friday last week.
“Buyer beware. These parcels of land are not for sale L.R NOs 10425, 8786, 10424, 7815/1 and 8784/4 located on both sides of Mombasa Road between Green Park and Daystar University. All the above parcels are the property of the East African Portland Cement Company,” the billboard reads.
“Buyer Beware. None of the EAPCC properties listed are on sale. The public is advised to be wary of conmen going around taking money from unsuspecting Kenyans.”
This means the company erected the billboards barely months after former Machakos governor Alfred Mutua raised similar concerns.
Mutua raised the red flag about the unprocedural sale of the land in a letter dated November 13, 2015.
Mutua wrote to the then Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission CEO Halakhe Waqo asking him to investigate the alleged illegal sale of the land.
"I write to request for an urgent investigation into ongoing corruption and land grabbing of East African Portland Cement Company Limited land L.R. No. 7815/1, 10424, 10425, 8784/4 and 8786 located at Athi River, Mavoko Constituency," Mutua said in a letter addressed to Waqo.
"The land, leased to East African Portland Cement Company Limited, has started being grabbed, sub-divided and sold, without the knowledge of the East African Portland Cement Company Limited Board and my Government of Machakos."
Mutua, who is now the Cabinet Secretary in charge of the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, said the Portland Board documents in their possession at the time showed that the leases were far from expiring.
Mutua noted in the letter that people had already bought plots on the land and started construction.
