The Busia County government is on the verge of reclaiming a section of the Busia town public service vehicles park-a private developer grabbed 15 years ago.
According to Lands, Housing and Urban Development Chief Officer Maurice Odundo plans to repossess the piece of land are at the final stage and they expect to officially hand it over to the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) in January for proper construction.
Odundo told KNA that the construction of the park will be done concurrently with the expansion of the Busia-Kisumu Highway between Busia town and Mundika.
He stated: “The process is complete. We had expected to do a hand over to KeNHA before the end of this month but it said it was not ready because it had cancelled the contract of the designing consultant.”
The repossession of the park comes at a time when complaints over the poor state of the park have dominated social media platforms with residents and users of the park blaming the county government for laxity.
However, Odundo defended the county administration saying although the complaints have been genuine the residents have little knowledge that the piece of land the park sits on was grabbed several years ago.
He added that the delayed transfer of ownership had limited the county’s desire to maintain the park that serves as the main terminus for public service vehicles operating between Busia-Kisumu-Nairobi, Busia-Bungoma routes among others.
“The County Government had to engage the National Land Commission and other relevant stakeholders to resolve the ownership row hence the delay,” he said.
By Melechezedeck Ejakait
