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{
    "id": 266316,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/266316/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 251,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Ethuro",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 158,
        "legal_name": "Ekwee David Ethuro",
        "slug": "ekwee-ethuro"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. He decided to go below. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is no more land. I wondered. That decision was made as early as 1992 but they are still appropriate land with that old thing. This must also inform the way we legislate on land. If there is one place where Chapter Six of the Constitution should apply – they are looking at the political class – it should be to somebody known as the Chief Land Registrar. Any person involved with land must be subject to Chapter Six of the Constitution. Integrity is extremely critical in this person. We can make the laws but if we are going to put people there who think that land is a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder through corrupt networks, we will not achieve what we desire to achieve in this country. That must be borne in mind. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I will put emphasis on northern Kenya. The rest of the land that people talk about is only 20 per cent of this country’s land mass. It is what they used to call “high potential areas” in accordance with very limited understanding of what “potential” is. Potentiality for maize growing is not the same as for wheat growing. It is not the same potentiality for dairy farming. It is not the same potentiality for beef production. All agro-ecological systems can suit a particular production system. I want the Minister to know that in the rest of northern Kenya, and in Isiolo in particular, the conflict that we are witnessing is partly due to the fact that all the wet season grazing land was appropriated by the State. It was put under military camps and national game reserves. In fact, three-quarters of the land in Taita Taveta County is owned by people who do not come from that area. We need to appreciate that, that kind of appropriation – which I would actually call misappropriation, as hon. Ntimama said clearly, must be re-looked at; the State appropriated land for a particular State purpose. The communities there must also be compensated, or must be allowed some other mechanisms to be able to deal with wet season grazing. In fact, the poverty of pastoralists is not a tragedy of common people. It is because of the nature of the production system, which the architects of the State, whom you call the founding fathers of Kenya, had no clue. They just had in mind their tethering of one cow or one goat. We do not tether animals. We let them have their freedom and this is appreciated in this country. We need to be given opportunities in terms of either compensation for additional land or at least enhancing of productivity. If you look at the technologies that we have all developed in the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, you will appreciate that we have only developed technologies for the high potential areas. We have not developed technology that is appropriate for 75 per cent of the land mass of this country. That is why poverty in pastoral areas is so high. Even this House has of late become part of a conspiracy to accuse the victims by asking pastoralists why they are poor. In fact, they think that poverty should be in their places. How can you cry for poverty? I wish I had the opportunities that you had, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I would be a proud Kenyan."
}