City Cabanas Owner Pocketed Sh1.93 Billion in Expressway Deal — Yet Road Didn’t Touch the Land

A controversial Sh1.93 billion payout for land allegedly acquired for the Nairobi Expressway is now at the heart of a legal firestorm, with new claims that the multibillion-shilling infrastructure did not even touch the property.

Rosaline Njeri Macharia, the registered owner of the land hosting the popular City Cabanas Hotel, was compensated in 2021 by the National Land Commission (NLC) and the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) for what was described as a compulsory acquisition for the 27-kilometre Nairobi Expressway.

But a petition filed by businessman Simion Nyamanya Ondiba challenges the entire process as fraudulent and unconstitutional.

“Despite the compensation of the sum of Sh1,937,772,429, the Nairobi Expressway did not pass through the property,” Mr Ondiba claims in court papers, terming the payout a case of “gargantuan white-collar fraud.”

Mr Ondiba alleges that he is the bona fide owner of the land in question, registered as LR No. 209/11293/1, which he purchased in 1994 from the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) for Sh60 million.

He claims to have subdivided the land into two parcels, both registered under his company, Simandi Investments Ltd.

However, when he visited the property in 2016, he says he found Ms Macharia had taken over, excavating and conducting developments on the land.

His attempts to assert ownership were met with criminal charges — first in 2016, and again after his acquittal in 2022 — which he says were part of a campaign to frustrate his efforts to reclaim the land.

Now, he is demanding the return of the Sh1.93 billion paid to Ms Macharia, arguing that the entire transaction lacked legal grounding, especially since the expressway did not traverse the land.

Ms Macharia has fired back, dismissing Mr Ondiba’s petition as “vexatious” and “forum shopping.” In her defence, she contends that the petition is an abuse of court process and should be dismissed on grounds of jurisdiction.

According to her, matters of land acquisition fall under the Land Acquisition Tribunal and not the Environment and Land Court, where the case was filed.

She further denies that Mr Ondiba ever owned the land and questions his legal standing in the matter.

“The petition amounts to a multiplicity of suits over the same property, to the detriment of due administration of justice,” she argues.

Mr Ondiba’s petition raises a critical question for Kenya’s public land management bodies: How was nearly Sh2 billion paid out for land that was not affected by a public project?

He is demanding that both NLC and KeNHA produce all documentation supporting the acquisition, including the legal basis used to value and compensate the land under LR No. 209/11293 — a title he describes as obsolete.

The case is scheduled to be heard on July 10, 2025.