Last Updated 2 hours ago by Kenya Engineer
The groundbreaking of the proposed Dangote East Africa Refinery in Lamu has marked the formal start of one of the most ambitious industrial projects ever proposed in Kenya. But even as the $16 billion development moves into its construction phase, questions over ownership and acquisition of some of the land earmarked for the project have placed a legal cloud over the development.
At the centre of the dispute is approximately 7,000 acres identified for the refinery and associated development in the Hindi/Manda Magogoni area of Lamu County. The Government maintains that much of the land is already public land, while residents challenging the project in court say portions of it are ancestral land that their families have occupied, cultivated and developed for generations.
The dispute has now moved beyond a disagreement over compensation. The Government is investigating allegations of fraudulent title deeds on land it says was previously acquired and consolidated under a Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) mother title.
The matter raises a question that extends well beyond the Dangote refinery: how securely can major engineering projects proceed when the ownership, acquisition and compensation status of project land remains contested?
Court orders status quo
On September 28, the Malindi Environment and Land Court ordered the parties to maintain the existing status quo on Land Reference No. 13061 in the Hindi/Manda Magogoni area until an inter partes hearing scheduled for October 14, 2026.
The application was brought by 133 Chandavai residents, who argue that their families have occupied, cultivated and developed parts of the disputed land for generations. They sought orders that would stop the planned development of the refinery and related activities on the contested property.
The court did not certify the application as urgent and did not issue an order expressly cancelling the refinery’s groundbreaking ceremony. Instead, it directed that the respondents be served and given 14 days to respond, while preserving the status quo pending the October 14 hearing.
The groundbreaking subsequently went ahead on September 30, with President William Ruto and Dangote Group President and CEO Aliko Dangote among those attending. Dangote has maintained that the court case would not prevent the project from moving forward, although the company acknowledged that the dispute could affect activities on the site.
Two very different accounts of the land
The land question has produced sharply different accounts.
According to the Government, much of the site is already public land. Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome has said approximately 7,000 acres had been identified for the refinery, alongside more than 2,000 additional acres described as State land.
The Government’s position is strengthened by a separate claim now being investigated concerning the history of the property.
Government Spokesperson Charles Owino said on October 4 that the land had previously been acquired by KPA and that approximately 90 families occupying the area when the port was being established had been compensated. According to the Government’s account, about Sh1.4 billion was paid to the affected families before the land was consolidated and transferred to KPA under a mother title.
The Government is now investigating allegations that new or conflicting title deeds may subsequently have been issued over portions of the same property. Owino said investigators were looking into the alleged fraudulent titles.
That allegation remains an allegation and will have to be established through the relevant investigations and, where necessary, the courts.
For the residents, however, the central issue is different. They maintain that the land is ancestral territory and that families have continued to occupy and use parts of it over generations.
Resolving the dispute thus requires more than identifying a title document. It involves establishing the history of acquisition, consolidation, compensation, subsequent transfers and occupation, as well as determining whether any later interests in the land were legally created.
That is precisely the type of uncertainty that can become significant for a large engineering project.
A project of enormous scale
The proposed refinery is not a conventional industrial development.
The facility is planned to have a processing capacity of 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which would make it the largest refinery project in East and Central Africa if completed as planned. The investment has been put at approximately $16 billion, with construction targeted for completion in about 40 months.
The refinery is also intended to form part of a much larger industrial complex. Government information on the project identifies plans that include a 1,000MW power plant as well as fertiliser and chemical manufacturing facilities.
Its location is equally strategic.
The refinery is being developed around Lamu within the wider LAPSSET corridor, connecting the proposed industrial development to the port, transport infrastructure, energy infrastructure and regional trade routes.
The scale means that site control is not a peripheral administrative matter. Land is the physical foundation on which the entire engineering programme depends.
Before foundations can be excavated, process units erected, pipelines installed, storage facilities constructed or supporting utilities laid, the developer needs certainty over where it can legally undertake those activities.
That makes the current dispute important not only from a legal perspective but also from a project-delivery perspective.
Why land becomes an engineering problem
Land acquisition is often treated as a legal or administrative stage that precedes engineering. In practice, it can become one of the most consequential project-management risks.
A road cannot be constructed across a disputed right of way. A railway cannot proceed through a parcel whose acquisition has not been completed. A transmission line cannot be commissioned across land where wayleave arrangements remain unresolved. A dam, port, airport or industrial facility cannot simply ignore competing claims to its construction site.
Kenya’s own project records illustrate the problem.
The Ministry of Transport has identified delays in land acquisition, compensation and resettlement action plans as factors affecting major transport projects, specifically citing developments including Dongo Kundu SEZ, Shimoni Fishing Port and railway projects. It has also identified lengthy processes for obtaining ownership documents and encroachment on land reserved for transport facilities as challenges to project delivery.
Auditor-General records similarly show cases where delayed acquisition of land affected construction schedules and resulted in additional costs. In one road project, delayed land acquisition contributed to delays in completing works and extensions of consultancy services, including additional costs running into millions of shillings.
The problem is thus not unique to Lamu.
For major engineering projects, land acquisition can affect the entire sequence of construction. A contractor may mobilise equipment and personnel, establish temporary facilities and plan its construction programme, only to find that sections of the project corridor remain unavailable.
This can disrupt the contractor’s planned sequence of work, create idle resources, require redesign or resequencing and ultimately increase project costs.
Compensation is only one part of the problem
Land acquisition disputes are also rarely just about the price of land.
They can involve questions of ownership, valuation, eligibility for compensation, historical occupation, resettlement, community rights and the legal process used to acquire the property.
A recent parliamentary record illustrates how these issues can become intertwined. In discussing delayed land compensation on an irrigation project, the Government cited inadequate budgetary allocations, disagreements over valuation and multiple court cases concerning compensation and acquisition.
For engineering project teams, the project schedule needs to reflect the time required to identify affected parties, verify ownership, undertake valuations, complete statutory processes, compensate eligible project-affected persons and secure possession of the land.
Where that process is incomplete, the engineering programme carries a risk even if financing and contractor procurement are already in place.
The Lamu lesson
The Dangote refinery dispute brings this issue into sharp focus because the project is so large and because it sits within an already strategically important infrastructure corridor.
The Government wants the refinery to become an anchor investment for Lamu and the wider LAPSSET corridor. Dangote Group is committing billions of dollars to a facility intended to supply refined petroleum products to Kenya and the wider East African market. Honeywell has also been brought into the project to provide engineering services, technology licensing and equipment, highlighting the scale of the technical undertaking ahead.
The project has the characteristics of a major engineering programme in which delays at one stage can have consequences elsewhere. A dispute over a parcel of land can affect access, site preparation, construction sequencing, supporting infrastructure and contractor mobilisation. The consequences can extend well beyond the particular parcel in dispute.
At the same time, the existence of a major national or regional project does not remove the need to establish lawful ownership and acquisition.
For project developers, government agencies and engineers, the lesson is that land readiness is part of project readiness.
A project should ideally reach financial close, detailed construction planning and mobilisation only after the land required for the relevant construction packages has been secured with sufficient legal certainty.
Where acquisition is incomplete, the risk should be recognised explicitly in the project programme rather than treated as an administrative matter that will somehow be resolved along the way.
Beyond the Dangote refinery
Kenya’s experience with major infrastructure shows why this matters.
The country is pursuing large investments in roads, railways, ports, energy infrastructure, industrial parks, water projects and urban developments. Many of these projects require large areas of land or long linear corridors crossing numerous privately and communally occupied parcels.
The National Land Commission’s role in compulsory acquisition, valuation and compensation has direct implications for infrastructure delivery. Parliament has repeatedly raised concerns about delays in compensation for land acquired for public projects, while official project reports have linked slow acquisition to delayed construction and increased costs.
The challenge is particularly pronounced where projects pass through areas with complicated histories of land ownership and occupation.
A modern title system may show one legal owner while communities may point to generations of occupation or unresolved historical claims. Conversely, a claim of ancestral occupation does not by itself determine the legal status of registered land.
That is why large projects require careful land due diligence before construction begins.
Surveyors, valuers, land lawyers, planners, engineers, environmental specialists and project managers all have a role to play in establishing that the land required for each stage of the project can actually be accessed and developed.
What happens next in Lamu?
For the Dangote refinery, the immediate milestone is the October 14 hearing before the Malindi Environment and Land Court.
Until then, the status quo order remains in place over LR No. 13061. The court will have an opportunity to consider the competing positions of the residents, Government agencies and other parties before determining the next stage of the dispute.
Meanwhile, the Government’s investigation into alleged fraudulent titles introduces another dimension to the case.
If the State’s account that the land was previously acquired, compensated and consolidated under a KPA mother title is established, questions would then arise over how any subsequent competing interests in the property were created.
If the residents’ claims raise legally recognised interests that were not properly addressed during acquisition, however, those issues will also need to be resolved before the project can achieve complete certainty over the affected land.
The refinery’s groundbreaking has marked an important project milestone, but it is not the end of the land question.
For Dangote, the Government and the engineering companies that will deliver the facility, the immediate challenge is to ensure that the legal foundation beneath the physical infrastructure is just as secure as the engineering foundation being designed for the refinery itself.
And for Kenya’s wider infrastructure programme, Lamu offers a familiar reminder: land acquisition is not a preliminary paperwork exercise. It is a critical engineering-project risk that can determine whether a project proceeds on schedule, whether costs remain under control and whether the infrastructure can ultimately be delivered with the necessary legal and social legitimacy.
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