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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the Motion. From the outset, I would like to say that I support the Motion because the Ministry does a very important job in distributing land to Kenyans who need it. They need to be facilitated to do this job properly. I want to congratulate the Minister for being appointed to that important Ministry. I am glad that we have a lawyer who has been given that post. In the past, we have had people who were appointed to that Ministry, and could make outrageous statements like saying \"a title deed is a piece of paper.\" I hope the lawyers who have been appointed - there was Prof. Kibwana and now Mr. Orengo - will restore sanity in the Ministry and the sanctity of title deeds. I also hope that they will respect land ownership because the whole capitalist system is based on the sanctity of title deeds. If you declare a title deed as a piece of paper, you are committing treason. Treason is not just overthrowing the Head of State. It is overthrowing the Constitution. All of us here took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. The only reason we have a Constitution is to protect life and property. Everything else is towards that goal. But the real reason we have a Constitution is to defend life and property. So, if somebody has acquired property legally, that has to be respected and everybody else should play by the rules. Nowadays, we have many activists and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) who take away people's constitutional rights or suspend the Constitution. We have ad hoc committees 2064 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 23, 2008 which sit and decide to suspend the Constitution and take away people's property rights, when they have no power to do so. We have a hierarchy of laws. Anytime when you see a group of people purporting to fight against the Constitution, the Constitution has to prevail. I am very confident that the new Minister will be able to uphold these principles and the country will be able to move forward with confidence, so that people can invest in property and enjoy it without harassment by busy-bodies here and there, who are mostly idlers. They have nothing better to do. I want to congratulate the Government for the work it has done in Lamu. All people in settlement schemes have got their title deeds. Thanks to the Government of Kenya. We are very grateful. But these settlement schemes were started 30 years ago. These people have grown up children and those farms are no longer enough to sustain those young men and women. They have bravely ventured forth into Government land and started life there. I request the hon. Minister to use some of these funds to formalise the ownership of that land by those young men and women. We have a similar problem like the one the Member for Samburu mentioned. We have some group ranches which were allocated 30 years ago, as well. You know about the insecurity that we had in Lamu caused by the shiftas and bandits. People started group ranches and invested in cattle. But the cattle were taken away by the bandits. So, the ability to pay for the title deeds was diminished. I would like to urge the Minister to consider waiving the penalties on those allotments to group ranches. The people will be very grateful and they will pray for you. This will enable them to own the land that was given to them and protect their way of life, which is, the pastoralist way of life. The population of Kenya is growing and very soon we will have conflicts. The people rightfully believe that the land belongs to them. That land is necessary for their way of life. Their way of life is the pastoralist way of life. So, I would urge the Minister to help us to obtain title deeds for the group ranches. We should not benefit individuals, but the entire communities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister is aware that there is a lot of hullabaloo in Tana River and Lamu about a sugar project. People have applied for land to start this sugar project. Our position is that we want development, jobs for our people and investment. But what we are afraid of is giving land to a company and then it closes shop after five years. The status of land will remain in limbo for a whole century. All over the world, or even in the rest of Kenya, anytime we have a sugar project, the company is given a nucleus estate in which to grow seed cane. But the extra cane is grown by the wananchi as outgrower schemes. We can have young men and women who are jobless go there and start a new life. They can support the factory but the land should go the people. We do not deny the factory the right to start their nucleus estates to develop good seed which will give us a variety of cane which is profitable for the farmers and factory. This is our position. The hon. Minister is coming to Lamu on Monday. We will give him more details about what our position is on that sort of thing. If you have been reading newspapers lately, there is a lot of hullabaloo about sand dunes in Lamu. I would like to inform the Minister, through this Chair, that the whole idea of world heritage is to protect the old town of Lamu which is about 15 acres. But we gave them a chance after the UNESCO intervened to put a head into the tent, but now they want to take over the whole tent. They have created a buffer zone of 1,200 acres. They are interfering with our way of life. They have been used by wazungu who have invested in Lamu. Some of them live in France and the headquarters for UNESCO which is sponsoring the world heritage site is in Paris. They go and search the UNESCO people day and night in order to do what they want. For UNESCO to get rid of these wazungus, they write letters to our Ministers here. I am afraid to say some of the previous Ministers we had were very gullible. They, therefore, went ahead to gazette our land without consulting the DDC or the County Council or anybody in order to please a few wazungu . This takes away the property rights of our people. We have a Lamu resident who has a title deed but has been deprived of the use of the land without July 23, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2065 compensation because of a gazettement which the Minister had no powers to do and nobody had the guts to stop him. The secretary could not tell him because he or she is a subordinate and was scared of losing his or her job if he or she tells the Minister the truth. This is what happened last year. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, in order to create an artificial shortage of land, these"
}