By Roy Hezron
Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Nairobi branch is planning to look for an investor who will be able to build up houses in their 85 acre piece of land.
The land, situated in Joska’s Nairobi suburb, will allow teachers to own descent houses and homes through monthly payment plans.
Branch Executive Secretary Macharia Mugwe told Education News during a recent visit to the site that they are looking for an investor who will be in a position to build houses for teachers in line with the government’s policy in the piece of land bought by the branch, so that teachers can be allowed to be paying on monthly basis to get the houses cheaply.
He called upon teachers who had already finished paying for their plots to collect their land title deeds, urging them to follow due diligence while buying land and not trust anyone in the process.
“The challenge is that teachers don’t collect their titles even after payments. Others don’t even view their land. I urge them when buying land not to trust anybody, but to be following the due diligence,” said Mugwe.
He narrated that they started the programme in 2018 by Nairobi Branch Executive Committee members in order to settle the teachers in Nairobi. The idea came after the branch learnt that most teachers rented houses and they don’t own any asset.
“Majority of the teachers buy vehicles and diversify their investments. We started with a Ksh8 million loan from Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) where we bought five acres of land at Joska. We used branch commissions from the head office as security,” narrated Mugwe.
He added: “The Ksh4.8 million we put it as a deposit of the five acre land and we thank God the project has now grown from five acres to 85 acres from Phase 1 in 2018 and now we are in Phase 7.”
Mugwe revealed that the project has settled 500 teachers who have started constructing their houses.
He added that at the moment, all teachers from primary, secondary and those working with Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the Ministry of Education are allowed to purchase land.
“The prices are adjusted according to the buying price, which vary from one land to another as we are not after making any profit.” He said.
