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{
    "id": 188748,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/188748/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 187,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ojaamong",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Labour",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 196,
        "legal_name": "Sospeter Odeke Ojaamongson",
        "slug": "sospeter-ojaamongson"
    },
    "content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, thank you for granting me this opportunity to support the Minister for Lands. The previous speakers have commented that the issue of land is so complex. If you go to the rural areas now, majority of the people of Kenya do not have title deeds. In fact, it is just the old wazees who try to demarcate land using historical boundaries. Unless the Ministry of Lands moves with speed to try to sort out the issue of land boundaries, it is a time bomb that is likely to explode very soon. We might get a brother fighting his own brother, or a son fighting his own father just over small pieces of land. Where I come from, that is Teso, we have very few people with title deeds. The process of getting the title deeds is somehow complex and it might be expensive, according to the people in the rural areas. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the land policy we are talking about should at least try to address the fees that people are supposed to pay before they acquire title deeds so that we forestall any conflict that might arise. In the rural areas, most public institutions lack title deeds. It is my appeal to the Minister that he takes it as a serious issue because the previous Governments wanted this to occur because it was very easy to grab public land like schools and hospitals. There must be a policy that these public institutions should get these titles free of charge so that they can safeguard themselves. Otherwise, we shall have one conflict after another arising due to lack of these title deeds. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, like Mr. Omingo, the hon. Member for South Mugirango said, corruption in the Ministry of Lands mutates. Indeed, when the previous National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC) Government asked people either through the Kenya Anti- July 22, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1983 Corruption Commission (KACC) to surrender illegally acquired public land and their titles, we thought the NARC people were very clean. Some Kenyan volunteers have returned the titles. To date, we have not known where the Government took this land that was surrendered and who benefitted from it. It is my appeal to the current Minister to act because the same person who was running that Ministry last time is the one who became a victim of parliamentarians here very recently. It is my appeal to the current Minister for Lands - I know he is a brave man and we have fought together right from the time of the Forum for Restoration of Democracy party (FORD) - to ensure that the titles that were surrendered are reclaimed again from the NARC people who benefitted from this land and that the people who benefited from this land, whether they sold it or not, should be brought to book. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have told Prof. Olweny who was speaking here before he left, that he is a professor of cowards because he was asked by hon. Dr. Khalwale to name the leaders who have grabbed land. You cannot be a leader and you are a land grabber. These people did a lot of disservice. These are the same people who grabbed land meant for the Kenya Industrial Estates (KIE), Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS). If the Minister is brave enough, let it be in history that since some of these people are still living, that they be killed by a firing squad at Uhuru Park so that other people will fear to grab this public land."
}