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{
    "id": 263856,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/263856/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 220,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Orengo",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Lands",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 129,
        "legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
        "slug": "james-orengo"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, part 2 of the Bill deals with the functions and powers of the Commission. That is found on page 259. We have more or less reproduced in its entirety Article 67(2) of the Constitution. This is to ensure that anybody dealing with the Commission or dealing with matters related to land, they do not have to go back to the Constitution to determine the powers and functions of the Commission. Although this is repetition and even some people have said it is superfluous but we think it is important to repeat those functions in the Bill so that they would be no doubt at all about the constitutional and statutory functions of the Commission in the Bill. In that same Article 5(1) which deals with functions of the Commission, there is Article 5(2) which also deals with additional powers of the National Land Commission. Those additional functions are to alienate public land, but we are saying that the Commission will only alienate public land with the consent of the national and county governments. If I may pause there and go back to the Constitution, the Constitution itself says that public land, though stipulated in the Constitution in Article 62(2) (ii) it enumerates that category of public land that shall be held by county governments in trust for the people resident in the county. That is an important principle that public land which falls under the category of public and enumerated in that sub-Article shall vest in be held by the county government in trust for the people. There are two things there. That the owner of that category of public land shall be the county government and it is held under the condition that it is in trust for the people resident in the county. The responsibility of the National Land Commission is to administer that category of public land on behalf of the National Land Commission. It would be important to state here that the Constitution provides that all unaleniated public land in any given count y shall vest and shall be held in trust by the county governments. So, the county governments are playing a critical role in public land ownership in the Republic. The National Land Commission in dealing and particularly in alienating public land can only do it on behalf of the two levels of government and with the consent of those two levels of government. This is both a check and balance to ensure that the National Land Commission does not change course and deal with land in a manner that is not stipulated in the Constitution. The other additional power of the National Land Commission is to monitor the registration of all rights and interests in land. There could be a conflict here but I think since we are collapsing the office of the Commissioner in its entirety, we will require a land commission that is going to manage public land. We will require a Land Commission that is going to manage public lands and register rights and interests in lands, but at the same time, monitor the registration of all rights and interests in land. It shall monitor because below it, there will be registrars all over the Republic and in the counties who shall be doing the technical work, but the Commission will be required to monitor that process. The other function is to develop and maintain an effective land information system at national and county levels. We thought that it was important to have these provisions there because one of the problems we have been having in the Land Office is the information systems which are manual and without modern digital land information systems. We fall in the kind of problems that we have been having of double allocation and registration and also fraudulent acquisition of land. There are many cases and I am sure the Chairman of the Land and Natural Resources Committee, hon. Musyimi, in the few years that he has chaired that Committee could have a dictionary of the kind of land malpractices that have been seen in this sector."
}