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{
"id": 1404461,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404461/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Marakwet West, Independent",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Timothy Kipchumba",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this very important piece of legislation. From the outset, I wish to thank Hon. Owen Baya for proposing such a progressive piece of legislation. The National Land Commission Act is one of the most crucial laws that Parliament has passed. It tackles the issue of historical land injustices that our country has been facing since time immemorial. We hope that this Commission will finally resolve this issue once and for all. However, the drafters of this Act included some sunset clauses that created significant drawbacks in terms of implementation. This Commission was established under Article 67 of the Constitution. Article 67(1)(e) provides that one could initiate a complaint about present or historical land injustice and recommend appropriate redress. The unfortunate thing is that the sunset clause meant that a claim could not be processed if it was more than five years old. The proposed amendment to remove that clause provides that an individual can now raise an issue without a time limit. In my constituency, we have had issues with the Chebororwa ADC Farm. As a community, we strongly believe that this land belongs to Marakwet West Constituency, in Elgeyo Marakwet County but it was transferred to Uasin Gishu County. This is a historical land injustice. If the five-year term limit is removed, this issue can be addressed as a historical land injustice. I understand that there is also a piece of land in Kapsowar Town that was taken and reallocated for administrative purposes, and to this day, the issue has not been addressed. The people who were moved from that land have not been compensated. I firmly believe that allowing more time to investigate historical land injustices will enable us to address such issues. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I would like to propose an amendment during the Committee of the whole House. Hon. Owen Baya should have set a timeline for addressing historical land injustices. I suggest that it should not take more than a year to address these matters. If it takes more than five years, it will be an injustice in itself. Therefore, during the Committee of the whole House, I will propose an amendment to put a time limit on addressing these issues. I also support the amendment of deleting Section 15(11) which provides that the timeline is capped at 11 years. It was unfortunate that when this law was put in place, that section would lapse after 11 years. The section addresses the issue of historical land injustices. If we repeal that section, it would mean that historical land injustices would not be time bound. They can be reviewed at any time without the capping of time to 11 years. It is also important that we review other statutes apart from this particular piece of legislation that caps time to five years, so that historical land injustices are addressed. Time limit should not affect historical land injustices. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
},
{
"id": 1404462,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404462/?format=api",
"text_counter": 246,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Marakwet West, Independent",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Timothy Kipchumba",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Hon. Deputy Speaker, I wish to rest my case there. I support these proposed amendments. I pray that Members in this House support the same. Thank you."
},
{
"id": 1404463,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404463/?format=api",
"text_counter": 247,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Deputy Speaker",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you. The Member for Tharaka."
},
{
"id": 1404464,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404464/?format=api",
"text_counter": 248,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Deputy Speaker. I rise to support the Bill. On the face of it, the Bill appears to be effecting minor amendments while in essence these amendments have far-reaching effects on the NLC and what it is supposed to do. It is vitally important to note that through this particular amendment we have to extend the power of the Commission to continue reviewing all grants and disposition of public land to establish their propriety or legality since Section 14 of the Act has lapsed. Many Kenyans do not know what the NLC does. It is supposed to deal with public land. We have made it appear like it deals with all the land in the country while that is not the case. The mandate of the Commission is on public land, especially protecting the rights pertinent thereto. Historically, Kenyans have found it extremely befitting to grab public land. To grab means to take land that belongs to the public illegally and without following the due process. What we have in the country today is that if you want to put up any public institution, it may become extremely difficult because the public land is gone. This is why we came up with the NLC to protect those rights. Where public land is taken away, this is the Commission that can confirm whether what was done was proper or improper. Once it makes a declaration that the acquisition was improper, it immediately starts the repossession process. With the lapse of Section 14 of the Act, NLC cannot perform this function. The Commission is left toothless. It will just be there to watch as greedy and hungry Kenyans take public land to the disadvantage of the common citizen. That is why it is extremely important that this amendment has been proposed. We should support it. Another function of the NLC is to address the issue of historical injustices. We know very well that since the advent of colonialism, we have been crying because of land unjustly taken away from us. First were the colonialists themselves who thought that Africans had no land rights. So they went about grabbing our land, with no compensation whatsoever. Eventually, we were herded into settlement areas and our right to land was never recognised until in the mid-1950s. Even where they recognised the right, it was extremely unfair especially to the residents of Central Kenya. Instead of recognising land rights to benefit Africans, it was a tool to punish those the colonialists thought had been involved in the Mau Mau freedom fight. Through various mechanisms, including establishment of the Registered Land Act, it was made mandatory that the owner of land who held a title had an indefeasible title. It could not be challenged under whatever circumstances. Therefore, the freedom fighters who were up in the mountain fighting for Independence found themselves landless. So, the law was used to dispossess them. That was a historical injustice. Soon after that, there were attempts to gain more land through the settlements that were being created through enactment of other laws which, although were trying to reduce the sanctity of titles, the sanctity remained paramount and unchallengeable. It is important to note today that if you obtain a title deed in an improper manner, the court has the power to declare that acquisition a nullity. Historical injustices came in when we set into politics. There were political clashes from time to time and people were displaced. There may have been arguments that the way so and so acquired land was improper because it belongs to this community and not the other, but a lot of people were dispossessed. The net effect is that these were historical injustices. I can give an example of my own constituency of Tharaka. We had made settlements in the larger Meru. That time we were one district, as they were called, and we had settled all over. Clashes were engineered by politicians on the basis that people from Tharaka Constituency had settled in areas that were not theirs, the net effect of which was to drive them out of that land. Eventually, because the politicians had the powers, they went ahead to The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
},
{
"id": 1404465,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404465/?format=api",
"text_counter": 249,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": "subdivide the land and acquire titles. When the people of Tharaka complained about those injustices, they were told the land was already demarcated and titles had been issued to third parties and those titles were indefeasible. It is for this reason that those people had to go to the NLC to seek redress on the basis that a historical injustice had been committed upon them. There are other injustices which we can also name, including double allocation of pieces of land where you find two titles on one piece of land. Through the courts or NLC, one of the titles has to go. If they are proper titles, then somebody somewhere has to be compensated because an injustice has occurred. Another common type of injustice is where absentee landlords own large tracts of land under one title."
},
{
"id": 1404466,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404466/?format=api",
"text_counter": 250,
"type": "scene",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "[The Deputy Speaker (Hon. Gladys Boss) left the Chair]"
},
{
"id": 1404467,
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"text_counter": 251,
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"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "[The Temporary Speaker (Hon. Farah Maalim) took the Chair]"
},
{
"id": 1404468,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404468/?format=api",
"text_counter": 252,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Hon. Temporary Speaker, they do not cultivate that land. So, trespassers have moved in and some of them have lived there for 12 to 20 years. They have acquired propriety rights to this land under the doctrine of adverse possession. Therefore, they are likely to claim that land as theirs. When you go to court with a title deed, there is another claim under adverse possession. Whichever way the court decides the case, one party is likely to suffer injustice and possibly has to go to the NLC for redress."
},
{
"id": 1404469,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404469/?format=api",
"text_counter": 253,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": "This is why the proposal to amend Section 15 of the principal Act is very important. So, as to ensure that the NLC retains its original powers, in spite of the fact that Sections 14 and 15 have lapsed."
},
{
"id": 1404470,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1404470/?format=api",
"text_counter": 254,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Tharaka, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. George Murugara",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. With those few remarks, I support the Bill and urge the House to pass it."
}
]
}