Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1226915,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1226915/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 67,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Onyonka",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13592,
        "legal_name": "Onyonka Richard Momoima",
        "slug": "onyonka-richard-momoima"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me the opportunity to support my brother, Sen. Osotsi, for raising such a critical issue. As you know; you, a few Members who are in this House and I have been in this Parliament for many years. We have been constantly discussing the issue of our lands; the land question in Kenya. This issue of land has come at the right time in the Senate. If you look around on what is happening in our politics, the outstanding issues that are coming up are those relating to land. It is necessary for us to look at the Ndungu Report. It is okay for us to look at the Kiliku Report. It is important for us to look at all the reports that have discussed and raised critical issues about the land question in Kenya. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, leaving that alone, I have to make my declaration here that I seem to have a matter, which is affecting me personally, but is being handled by a Governor in one of the counties in our Republic. What is happening now is that, when a governor comes after the governor who was there before has left, that governor changes the rules and sets up adhoc committees, does not regard the law and runs around all over this place trying to tell his people that he is trying to reclaim land that was stolen by the grabbers. In reality, some of the residents on those lands are very poor squatters who have lived there for more than 25 years. In some cases, land was annexed and allocated fairly while in other cases it was grabbed, as the public is aware. I believe that our Government has not been very keen on land policy; on land demarcation; on which land we must keep strictly for agricultural purposes, what needs to be kept strictly for development in terms of building infrastructure or building houses or building railways. We should not deal with this matter in a piecemeal manner. Instead of us looking at the issue that Sen. Osotsi has talked about, there is one issue from Kisii County, where I come from. Sen. Okiya Omtatah will talk about land that has been grabbed from the airport in Busia County. I am happy that the Senate Majority Leader is here. I would like to make a very special request. Discuss with the President and tell him that we need a special commission to go around the Republic of Kenya and come up with the implementable resolutions which will remove the amount of anger and conflict that exists in our country because of the land question. I believe that it is necessary for us to seriously look at this issue. That way, we can try and limit or reduce the amount of anger, desperation and frustration that many of our voters have. This will make sure that we have a reasonable land policy. If somebody wants to come to Kenya and be a squatter, they can buy land without having any question about it. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, finally, if you wanted to buy a piece of land in Rwanda, you can do it online from Nairobi. They have a portal where you access the pictures on your phone. You go to the Attorney-General's office, and he tells you whether you can buy that land or not. I do not understand why we cannot do that in Kenya yet the Kenyan surveyors and engineers set up the systems in Rwanda."
}