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{
    "id": 153039,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/153039/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 296,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "content": "On the 22nd April 2008, another senior Government official, the Provincial Commissioner (PC) Coast Province, Mr. Ernest Munyi said that the Government has bought 70,000 acres of land to settle squatters at the Coast. He said the landless people of Mombasa, Malindi, Kilifi, Taveta and Kwale Districts would be able to obtain title deeds so that they could use them as security to develop themselves economically. None other than His Excellency the President himself, in fact, ordered that there should be an accelerated programme for squatter settlement in the Coast during the just concluded campaigns for elections. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, these statements from senior Government officials have not translated themselves into actual action of continuous settlement of squatters on the ground. That is why today, I urge this House to very strongly support this definitive move that Parliament is making today by passing this Motion, to say that we must now set a Fund under the Fiscal Management Act that will be called the Squatters Settlement Fund. This Fund will enable the Government to set aside funds that are specific so that all these statements – some of them good intentioned - can be actualised by a process that we know. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am confident that this Motion will be carried today. It is not only in the Coast Province, Saboti or parts of Rift Valley that we have the squatter problem. The problem is everywhere. We are all aware of the long story that squatters in the now new Nyeri North District, in Kieni, have experienced. It took the intervention of not less than the First Lady, for something to start being done about those squatters. In this Parliament and as a leadership of this nation, we do not want things to wait for special intervention for squatters to be settled. In this country, through the action of this Parliament, we want to have a clear programme and money voted by this Parliament through this Motion. A programme will be made so that squatters in this country can be settled. I trust with all my heart that this Motion will carry the day today. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, in seconding, I would want to urge that when we set up this Squatters Settlement Fund scheme that would be specific for squatters under the Fiscal Management Act, we need to be careful to avoid the pitfalls that have accompanied these haphazard ongoing settlement of squatters programmes that exist. I say so because there has been over valuation and over pricing of land that has been bought specifically for the purpose of settlement of squatters. In fact, 12,000 hectares were bought for purposes of settling squatters who were found along the Nyeri road. What happened is that, the Lands Officers and officials questioned the procedure that was used in pricing that land in 2007. After raising those concerns, the officers were moved from their stations. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, Questions have come before this House as to how companies that were owned by former Cabinet Ministers were given lucrative prices for parcels of land that were not worth that much. We must avoid those pitfalls. Those pitfalls will only be avoided if we can set up good procedures so that when this Fund is set up, there will be a proper way of pricing these pieces of land. There will be a clear way of making sure that Kenyan taxpayers, who will pay for this land, will get value for their money. People who are settled will also be able to get value for what the taxpayers have paid."
}