The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has secured the recovery of a public road reserve in Mombasa valued at approximately Sh25 million.
The property, identified as Mombasa Municipality/Block XIX/305, is located along Machakos Road and serves as an access route to the University of Nairobi’s Mombasa Campus.
The recovery follows a judgment delivered on September 24, 2026, in Mombasa ELC Case No. E049 of 2023, in which Environment and Land Court Justice Y.M. Angima found that the parcel had been illegally and fraudulently alienated from a road reserve in 1994.
The court declared the lease and survey plan used to create the parcel null and void and ordered the rectification of land and survey records.
EACC said its investigations established that the road reserve had been unlawfully excised from Machakos Road and allocated to the late Ezekiel Luyali, who was then a councillor at the Municipal Council of Mombasa.
The allocation was allegedly facilitated by then Town Clerk David Kalume Randu and Mayor Ahmed Mwidhani.
According to the court, the purported allocation did not follow the legal procedure required at the time for the closure of a public road.
There was no evidence of gazette notices announcing the intention to close the road, an approved Part Development Plan, a council or committee resolution authorising the allocation, or approval by the then Minister for Local Government for the 99-year alienation.
The court subsequently declared the September 1, 1994 lease null and void and directed the Chief Land Registrar to cancel the related entries.
It also declared Survey Plan Folio Register No. 264/37, which created the parcel, null and void and ordered the Director of Surveys to cancel it.
A permanent injunction was further issued barring any further sale, transfer, lease, charge, disposal or other dealings with the property.
EACC said the judgment reinforces the requirement that public land reserved for public use must be managed in accordance with the law and protected from unlawful conversion to private use.
