Naivasha Land Registrar Gildine Gatwiri Karani is under investigation for her role in the fraudulent sale of 667 acres of public land valued at over Ksh 1.3 billion, belonging to the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) in Kitale.
During a Thursday operation, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) officials discovered Ksh 470,000 in her office, which was suspected to be proceeds from the extortion of citizens seeking land services in Naivasha.
Karani is accused of exploiting her position to facilitate the illegal sale of public land and extorting money from the public for land-related services.
Benson Limo, the Kiambu Land Registrar, is also under investigation for his alleged involvement in orchestrating the illegal sale of ADC land to private individuals while both he and Karani served at the Nairobi Land Registry.
During a related operation at Limo’s residence, EACC officials recovered a significant collection of official land transaction documents, including blank certificates of title, blank green cards, processed title documents, and advocate stamps, believed to have been used in fraudulent land transactions.
Limo is specifically accused of using official land documents to effect unauthorized transactions and collaborating with fraudsters to facilitate the illegal sale of government land.
According to the EACC, the investigation into Karani and Limo is part of a broader probe targeting 42 land registrars across the country.
The officials are facing accusations of engaging in a range of fraudulent dealings, including illegally alienating government land to private developers, colluding with fraudsters to carry out double allocations, facilitating tax evasion through stamp duty manipulation, allocating private land to unauthorized individuals, and accumulating unexplained wealth.
The EACC has called on members of the public with information about fraudulent land dealings to report it through their toll-free line, 1551, to aid in ongoing anti-corruption efforts.
