Ruto orders KWS to shift park boundary so Makueni residents can get title deeds

President William Ruto promised title deeds on Monday, October 26, to Makueni County residents living on land gazetted as part of the Chyulu Hills and Tsavo East National Parks, saying the park boundary would be moved to regularise their occupation.

“As the President, I have decided that we will move the park's border, and this land will belong to you,” Ruto said during the commissioning of the Kathekani Senior School in Makueni. He said he would direct the Kenya Wildlife Service to hand over the land under settlement to the locals and give the agency land adjacent to the boundary instead.

Ruto said that once the land is hived off it will be partitioned and the title deeds processed by the National Land Commission before he returns to present them. “I have heard that you have issues with title deeds, especially here in Ngai Ndethya, Mbetwani and Ngiluni. You have lived here, but it has been said that the area belongs to the national park,” he said, adding that he would tell KWS to move its borders and take more land on the other side.

On the same tour he launched the 55-kilometre Twimiwa-Tseikuru-Usweni road in Mwingi North Constituency, which he said will cost Ksh5 billion and is intended to link pastoralist and farming communities to markets, and instructed the contractor to tarmac the three-kilometre feeder road to Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka's home.

He also launched a Last Mile Connectivity project in Kathekani, student hostels at Tseikuru National Polytechnic, handed over a school bus to Tharaka Girls Secondary School and issued title deeds to residents of Machinery Market. Ruto rallied residents to support his re-election in 2027 and pledged Ksh5 million towards a school bus for Kathekani Senior Secondary School.