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{
    "id": 1494182,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1494182/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 619,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Molo, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, one of the issues that we were discussing earlier on the absenteeism of Members is that you prepare for one Bill only for it to be stepped down because the Mover is not there. You have to recollect where you were in the other Bill. I rise to support the Land Control Amendment Bill, (National Assembly Bill No. 39 of 2023). This Bill is seeking to replace the Land Registration Act (Cap. 300) with this current provision. One of the few things that I noted that are going to be very consequential in terms of this particular amendment is the change in the composition of the land board committees at the constituency level. Every time there has been any need for a change, those particular committees have been met with a lot of bureaucracies. I am particularly impressed by the inclusion of members of the private sector, not necessarily the appointees of Government, in the appointment to those particular committees. I am also very impressed with the new role in this amendment in giving the land control committees at the constituency level the power to investigate any matters relating to fraud or any misallocation of land to individuals who may not be the ones that should be accorded that land. If you look at the data from our law courts, especially the land court, the number of cases involving matters of land is immense. Many court processes are used to try to cure and resolve those land matters. Most of the time, those courts are disadvantaged in terms of their access to information, considering most of those parcels of land in this country do not have valid title deeds. An honourable court has to dig into the family history and find out who had the first letter of allotment, and to whom the transfer was made of those letters of allotment because the only valid document most people have in their possession of land is a sale agreement. Some of those sale agreements are so old that they were handwritten, and appending the signature was by way of fingerprints, as it were for most of the informally uneducated parents. Therefore, when the honourable courts try to investigate those particular matters and give justice to the owners of those particular lands, they face all those challenges administratively. With those committees at the constituency level being given the extra duty to investigate and determine those specific cases of fraud, they will be able to trace the history. If you go to a particular village or community of a particular town and ask the residents of that town, including our villagers and the nyumba kumi committee members, they will give you a proper history of how that land changed hands from so and so, to so and so. However, that particular evidence is not usually available in a way that is palatable to a judicial system. Thus, this particular change in the combination of those particular committees is crucial to ensure a fastened solution to the conflict in terms of land in our Republic."
}