Business Daily (Nairobi)
9 November 2009
The documents tell it all. The independence elite -- many of them close associates of the founding President Jomo Kenyatta -- used the trappings of power to acquire the most valuable economic asset at the time, land.
Better known for the sterling economic performance during their tenure in power, official government documents declassified under the 30-year rule show that the first 10 years of independence were characterised by a bare knuckle intra-elite fight over the large tracts of land left behind by white settlers.
Top government officials threw caution to the wind, firing letters to colleagues in the right offices asking to be allocated land they did not qualify to own.
Documents seen by Business Daily indicate that the scramble for land began in earnest with the failure of the British government and World Bank to provide enough money to buy all the land in the Scheduled Areas, also known as White Highlands.
That paved the way for the buying of land by private treaty that tilted the balance in favour of the political elite, senior civil servants and business people. In the buying spree that followed, senior government officials suddenly became big land owning elite, creating the wealth gap between them and the rest of the population that has persisted to date.
By December 1966, for instance, the Kenyatta family had acquired more than 3,895 acres of land in Nairobi and Ruiru at a total cost of Sh472,740 only.
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