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{
    "id": 1228562,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1228562/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 51,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Sir. I join the rest of my colleagues and those who will speak after in sharing a thought or two in these two Petitions that have been presented. I will begin with the latter and then the former. This is the second Petition in the last two weeks that is being brought before this House with regards to land acquired by the Government forcefully and the subsequent mistreatment of members of the public who were otherwise going about their duties and were not bothered with selling that particular land but because the Government had need or for strategic reasons to the community decided to acquire the land. Mr. Speaker, Sir, about five years ago, we passed the Land Valuation Bill in this House that provided the procedures upon which the Government can acquire land from members of the public and the procedures that need to be followed. We debated those laws for many hours in this House. In fact, if my memory serves me right, we stayed up until late into the night because there were many regulations that Members felt we needed to include, so that we protect the citizens because the basis of argument at that particular time was between the Government and the people who deserve protection from each other. While it was found that on many occasions this is based on the experience from how people had manipulated land records, especially key people in Government who knew where strategic investments and big projects were about to be churned out in a particular part of the country; they would quickly buy land and sell it to the Government at an exorbitant price; then we found that there was need to, while securing the interest of Kenyans generally, because the Government at the end of the day is all of us, as a people, but still also protect the rights of the property owners. This is because the right to own property is a constitutional right, which we felt if you are providing for the legal mechanism of how the same can me be withdrawn, then it must be properly guided, so that citizens can enjoy their rights to the full. Therefore, we did a Bill in this House one afternoon that we hoped would have ensured that we never get to see the kind of Petitions like the one that was presented last week with regard to Vihiga County and this one of today from Laikipia County. It is my sincere hope that when the Committee on Lands, Environment and Natural Resources retreats to consider this particular issue, they will come back to this House with a Report on whether it is for want of good laws that we are seeing many of these cases. I believe that these two cases are not the only ones in the country. Is it that"
}