Telkom pensioners' fight for Sh1 billion property turns bloody

One Saturday morning, on October 7, 2023, the tenants of two apartments in a two-acre plot were invaded by goons carrying crude weapons in a new twist to a long-drawn legal tussle over the ownership of a prime Sh1 billion property.

The goons claimed they had been instructed to evict the tenants—Total Security Surveillance and Le-Molok Limited—from the property located in Upper Hill, Nairobi. 

The landlord of the two tenants is Telposta Pension Scheme, a retirement benefits scheme for the former employees of the defunct Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC), once a giant state corporation that provided telecommunication and postal services across the country before it was split into three entities.

The ‘goons’ were working for Intercountries Importers and Exporters Limited, which claimed to have gotten the eviction orders from Andrew Muma, the vice chairperson of the Business Premises Rent Tribunal, a month earlier.

The eviction order by Justice Muma was purportedly issued ex-parte, i.e. in the absence of the respondents, in this case Le-Molok and Total Securities. 

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In a letter to Chief Justice Martha Koom, the lawyers for Telposta said the tenants’ properties, including cars for sale, were extensively damaged and some equipment stolen.

“Further, workers of the Respondents (Le-Molok and Total Securities) were injured during the attempted unlawful eviction,” said Kale Maina Bundotich Advocates, who are acting for Telposta, indicating the long drawn scramble for the prime property is getting bloodier by the day.

Intercountries Importers is claiming ownership of the Sh1 billion property after successfully arguing in the High Court that they were innocent purchasers of value.

Telposta, which insists that the property was given to it by the government to help settle its pension liabilities, has since appealed the ruling at the Court of Appeal. In a letter to the Chief Justice, Telposta also says it has obtained orders suspending any eviction until its appeal is decided by a three-judge bench in the Court of Appeal.

This has led Telposta's lawyers to ask the Chief Justice to investigate the circumstances under which the eviction order was issued. 

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“In the circumstances, our client humbly appeals to you to order investigations to be carried out on the circumstances under which the order was purportedly issued and executed, with a view to restoring confidence in the judicial process and also to take remedial action to avoid such incidences recurring in future,” they said.

According to the lawyers, Justice Muma gave an eviction order in the absence of the respondents despite the legal requirement that such an order be issued in the presence of all parties.

The lawyers also complained that the tribunal never issued any warrant of eviction identifying the auctioneer or court bailiff. 

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“Instead, the order was executed by unidentified goons armed with crude weapons,” they added.

Telposta has recently recovered a number of properties. 

The former workers of Telposta have been the victims of windy legal battles that have left most of them without monthly payments for months.

Telposta Pension Scheme insists Intercountries Importers is not an innocent buyer, saying they knew the land had been designated public property.

Intercountries won the first round of the legal tussle, with Justice Rose Edwina Atieno Ougo ruling that the company, which bought the title from Trust Bank Limited (in liquidation) in 1996, was an innocent purchaser of value, as it was not aware of Teleposta’s claim on the property.

But Teleposta, through Kale Maina & Bundotich Advocates, filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal on March 15, 2019, arguing that Intercountries was not an innocent purchaser and that the title deed was acquired illegally, meaning it should be cancelled by the court.

“The appellant submits that the 1st Respondent’s position that it was an innocent purchaser for value does not hold water based on the fact that at the time of acquiring the title from Trust Bank Limited (in liquidation) through charges power of sale, parties to the transaction executed a deed of indemnity where it was agreed that Trust Bank would refund the 1st Respondent herein the full purchase price in any case the title it was acquiring was found to be irregular,” reads the complaint by Teleposta.

Intercountries argues that it is a bona fide purchaser of the property, having bought it from Park Avenue Investment Limited in 1996. The property had been charged by Trust Bank.

Teleposta Pension Scheme insists that the land was designated as public land, which means that it was irregularly and unprocedurally allocated to private developers such as Park Avenue.

Park Avenue Investment was allotted the property, which had initially housed Telkom workers, by the Commissioner of Lands on April 30, 1996. It was later registered on May 23, 1996 by the Registrar.

But Park Avenue not only failed to show how public land was converted into private property, but it also failed to prove to the High Court that the title was genuine, Telposta’s lawyers said in their submission.

Teleposta's former employees, most of whom retired in 2007-08, have not received their pensions for months.​