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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me a chance to contribute to the debate on this very important Motion. The issues of landlessness and squatters are very emotive. I am shocked to see that the Minister responsible for this particular Ministry is not here taking notes. I can only see Assistant Ministers who are very eager to contribute to the debate. This is a very important Motion. The plight of squatters in this country is very demeaning. I have lived around a place where squatters have settled. If you look at the manner in which they live, you will find that it leaves a lot to be desired. They live in very poor sanitary conditions and the food they eat leaves a lot to be desired. They have no proper shelter, their children have no access to good education and we are just watching. We should ask ourselves: Who are the big land owners in this country? When land ownership data was produced sometime ago, it was found out that a few families actually own arable land in this country. One wonders whether members of these families, which have, in fact, ruled this country, have hearts. I do not know for what reason one wanted to own 300,000 acres of land when he ruled this country when other people did not have land. I do not know what joy one would derive out of that. This is shameful! Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we were fighting for the second liberation of this country, we were singing \"Yote Yanawezekana Bila Moi\" . Did we sing that just to jump into the sea and perpetrate what Moi was doing? 3670 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES November 15, 2006 Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the question of absentee landlords is a major issue which has been on our lips for a long time, yet we do not seem to move and correct the situation. What we are doing is exactly the same thing we oppose. You know very well that in fact, we come here and pretend that we are advocating for the poor, when we are still the ones who go out there and buy all the land that belongs to them. The poor do not have anywhere to graze their animals. We come here to pretend and call others names. When I go buying all the land from my neighbours who are semi-literate, leaving them in small little villages, yet those people have two to five animals which need to graze, and the only place they could graze was the land I bought, how can I blame them? It is high time that everybody thought like the Mover of this Motion. I was surprised to hear the Mover of this Motion say that he is one of the biggest land owners in this country and that the Government needs to decide on how some people will give up their land to the poor. Time will come, whether we like it or not, when squatters will have to take some of our land. It is theirs and they will take it. The faster we move to correct the situation, the better. We said that, Yote Yawezekana Bila Moi . What happened in my constituency about two weeks ago is shocking. There are about 1,000 people living in a place where they were settled by the colonialists in 1953. Recently, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources told them that they were living in forest land and that they must move out. Those people had lived there since 1953. When they asked why they were being evicted, they were told that the land had not been gazetted. Since the land had not been gazetted, all the squatters had to move out. There was no proper explanation given to them, yet they were waiting to be evicted from a place which they had occupied since 1953, and had title deeds to show that. What a shame? What is this Government trying to do? Is this the Government we were fighting to bring into power? No wonder its officers are not in this House today."
}