Two State agencies are embroiled in a bitter feud over a prime 2.57-hectare parcel of land in Nairobi’s Kangemi area, with the National Treasury intervening to calm tensions.
The Directorate of Veterinary Services (DVS) is accused of taking over the land belonging to the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (Kippra) but failing to honour a promise to provide an alternative parcel.
As a result of the dispute, Kippra continues to list the prime land as part of its properties in its books, though the DVS has already fenced it off and blocked Kippra from entry, official disclosures said.
The contested plot was issued to Kippra by the government in 2010, but the institute says the State Department for Livestock blocked it from constructing its headquarters in 2016, claiming that it would sit on the DVS’s bio-facilities and drainage.
“The land's utilisation was disputed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock & Fisheries, and proposed an alternative that has never materialized to date,” Kippra says, noting that the land was valued at Sh250 million a decade ago.
“Kippra intends to construct its own headquarters once the land is acquired. This will also host the Kippra Campus, where capacity building of young professionals and public officers will be carried out,” the institute adds.
Kippra admits that its Board of Directors approved the surrender of the land’s title deed in 2016 on a promise that the State Department for Livestock would provide it with an alternative land.
With the promise having never materialised a decade later, the institute continues to count the parcel among its properties, though the actual possession is with the DVS.
In an audit for the agency for the year ending June 2025, Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu notes that in June last year, the National Treasury intervened on the matter, asking the National Land Commission (NLC) to issue Kippra with a title deed for the alternative parcel of land promised by the State Department for Livestock.
“The Cabinet Secretary, National Treasury and Economic Planning, wrote a letter to the NLC dated June 19, 2025, requesting the surrender and transfer of the title deed of the land in question to KIPPRA,” Ms Gathungu said.
The public auditor noted that by the end of June, Kippra “had not been allocated an alternative piece of land and could not also access the allocated parcel of land as the DVS had fenced it off.”
The matter was referred to NLC following the 2016 dispute between Kippra and the DVS, after the latter blocked the construction of Kippra's headquarters on the land.
“In 2016, the Institute initiated the construction of offices on the land, but the State Department of Livestock proposed an alternative piece of land on the basis that the current land was not ideal as it is within the Kabete Veterinary Bio-Facilities and drainage,” the Auditor-General noted.
