GET /api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1186555/?format=api
HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 1186555,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1186555/?format=api",
"text_counter": 361,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kwanza, FORD – K",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Ferdinand Wanyonyi",
"speaker": null,
"content": "It is very critical that we look at this. First of all, we are having population growth. The population growth in this country is going up every day. Therefore, we should increase food production to avoid famine and hunger that we are now experiencing in this country. Secondly, there is fragmentation of land dividing it into economic units of small little pieces of land thereby reducing the cultivatable land. For example, if you have three children or sons, you divide your small piece of land and give a portion of it to the first born, another one to the second born and so on. In that way, you are actually interfering with productive land. That should stop. I see it happening all over the country, particularly in my area which is supposed to be a settlement area. People are now dividing land depending on how big their families are. Those who have two or three wives divide that productive land and because of that, land is becoming smaller and smaller. In the next 20 years, we will be asked what happened to our generation. That is a very important observation, otherwise, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot. We do not have to mention names, but as you know some families are wealthy and buy a lot of land. Others have acquired land because of clannism or they have bought a lot of land. I would like to point out that that is our weakness in Trans Nzoia, parts of Laikipia and also in Taita Taveta. Some families buy a lot of land yet its usage is not as expected. They buy or acquire vast tracts of land but they do not utilise it to the expected levels. I am just thinking aloud. You may have 500 acres of land and you only use 100 acres. The remaining land lies fallow for animals to graze on yet, it is supposed to have been used for cultivation. I have seen that happening on the land that belongs to the Agricultural Development Corporation in Trans Nzoia. My colleagues from there can confirm that the land is just lying idle. A person leaves land idle and is not in a position to do anything with it. Therefore, the Government should levy taxes on that land. I will leave that to the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development because it is an issue. We have institutions such as schools and colleges which instead of expanding horizontally, should now expand vertically because their land is not being used. I went to an institution that has 13 acres of land and is only using one acre; the rest is just lying fallow. That land should be used for production. We need to build vertically instead of horizontally so that we can use land to even plant vegetables, beans or potatoes. At least that will help this country. We have many problems. This Motion was supposed to have come in the 12th Parliament, but time ran out. I had a chance to go to South Africa where families live in clusters. If you have four or five children and you have two acres of land, you build a house on one acre for you and your children and the rest of the land is left for cultivation. That is what we should do because we have a lot of competition. We are currently experiencing famine. We should ask ourselves why we have famine in Kenya of all places yet there is land. It is because we have not used land very well. I have come up with this Motion so that it may eventually become a Bill. The Motion seeks to involve the Government to ensure that land is used productively. I just want to repeat that there are those with large tracts of land which are just lying fallow yet, Kenyans out there have no food because of lack of land. It, therefore, falls on us as leaders to do something about it. We should use that land for productive purposes other than leaving it to lie fallow. I urge the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development to come up with a Bill that we will pass in the House, so that those who have land for the sake of it because they inherited it or they bought a lot of it, should be taxed for having land lying fallow. Due to time constraints, I take this opportunity to ask the House to support this Motion because it is very important. We should see what is happening now and what will happen in 20 years. With those few remarks, I ask my colleague, Hon. Robert Pukose, to second. Thank you. 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."
}