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{
    "id": 1183469,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1183469/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 131,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "North Imenti, Independent",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Rahim Dawood",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I will not say whether I am for this Motion or not because of one reason I have already given to Hon. Ferdinand Wanyonyi. Minimum and maximum acreage of land should not be a case at all. There are places like the ones Hon. Mbadi has talked about, namely, Meru, Kisii and Nyamira… What if somebody has only one acre of land and the Committee on Implementation says that that is the minimum? We should have different categories of minimum and maximum acreages depending on whether an area is urban or semi-urban because that is how it should be. I agree with the maximum rule where we should put land to production because Article 60 of the Constitution says that you have to have land security. However, when Hon. Waluke talked, I think he did so from both sides of his mouth, he said that there is a family which owns 56,000 acres of land which they got for free. He then went ahead and said that we should pay them for the same land so that we can give it to people to undertake farming. If public land was, indeed, given to individuals for free then, it should be given back to the public for free. Land is an emotive issue in this country. We should not have people who have large tracks of land. We should come up with a policy that if you are not using the land productively, then you should be charged for it. If you are not going to use it, let other people use it. Let it be leased to other people if it is freehold because under Article 60 of the Constitution, every person is guaranteed security of land rights even through there is not a blanket protection by the law. We should see how we can lease idle land at minimal cost or otherwise, the land owner should pay land rates yearly. Freehold land does not attract land rates. We need to know that some individuals have obscene acreages of land. Hon. Waluke mentioned about 56,000 acres. Another Member mentioned 100,000 acres. Certain individuals own almost whole counties. In some instances, 60 per cent of a county is owned by an individual. If that is the case, then they need to pay rates for such land per acre. Hon. Ferdinand Wanyonyi from Kwanza Constituency needs to come up with reparation that can be done, otherwise, we are going to have people owning land without putting it into productive use. We cannot set a minimum acreage of land in urban areas. If I were to talk of my constituency, it is both urban and semi-urban. If I was to go to one of my municipality wards and say that the minimum acreage of land is half an acre, what happens to a person who has five children? How is he going to divide that half acre amongst his children? Will he wait for them to kill each other for them to inherit that land? The minimum should not apply to urban centres and urban areas because that land is not used commercially for agriculture. As much as I support this Motion, I do so on the maximum aspect and not on the minimum aspect. I hope we can get down on this matter as early as possible because similar Motions came up in the previous two Parliaments, but they were not prioritised. We were there, but nothing happened. I hope this time round, we will do something."
}