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"id": 118551,
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"content": "laws governing land and land interests. A simple count will show that we have not less than 17 statutes that primarily deal with land. We have close to 67 different statutes that have something to do with land. This Policy indicates the need to harmonize and consolidate land laws so that it can be easy and simple as a point of reference. Anybody looking for inheritance rights, customary land rights, statutory land rights, or any issues of land should be able to find them in a statute harmonizing these fragmented and scattered statutes. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, no policy, however good, will settle and solve our land problems fully if we do not look at the basic structures of our society. To begin with, if land remains the primary and principal resource for the people of this country, there will always be conflicts. There will always be too little for too many people and issues that will set individuals against each other and communities against each other. Where does the answer lie? It lies in industrialization. If you go to a country like the United Kingdom (UK), which is just slightly bigger than the Rift Valley Province of Kenya, you will find much more open spaces and agricultural land than we, perhaps, have in this country. It is because of industrialization. We need proper planning. This Policy will succeed if the Ministries responsible for housing, industrialization and for providing social services play their respective roles. When you go to the rural areas, even if the Government was to supply electricity, water, health services, and educational institutions, and people are living a kilometer apart, to send pylons to individuals at that range is very expensive. We must find a way of clustering settlements. We need to attract people to centres of settlement where they have schools ready for their children. People require places where they can access medical care easily; they can have ample security and everything that requires a decent social life. That way, people will be attracted away from being glued on to land and move to where services are. Our grandchildren, I do not think have as much emotion on land as we have or our parents and grandparents do. If we provide these services, we will be able to attract people away from land. I say this because sometimes, it worries me that our country has just about 21 per cent of its land mass classified as rain secure while the rest is classified as Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASAL), semi-ASAL and semi-desert. With a population of 40 million-plus, the pressure we are putting on the available productive land will not hold. We need more innovative ways of managing our land. This must be addressed through restrictions on reckless subdivisions of land. Many of us here represent rural constituencies. In the countryside, in the old days, a family would have their own pair of oxen for ploughing. Today, if you have an acre or two acres of land, even if you have a pair of oxen, where would you graze it? Where would you keep it? Even if you were to hire a tractor, who would hire out a tractor to you to come and plough a half-acre piece of land? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we need to preserve agricultural land, if this country has to feed her people. We need to preserve agricultural land if we are to industrialise, and not spend the money we generate from industrialisation for importing food. Even in areas regarded as the granaries of Kenya such as Trans Nzoia District and Uasin Gishu, the level of subdivision of land is frightening. If you go to Sotik area, you will see that all the farms are being subdivided into small unproductive portions. This policy must address this problem. If you seek to own"
}