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{
    "id": 266323,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/266323/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 258,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Olweny",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Education",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 122,
        "legal_name": "Patrick Ayiecho Olweny",
        "slug": "patrick-olweny"
    },
    "content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the issue of land before us today is really a sensitive matter in this country. In fact, the history of land problems in this country goes back to the days when the colonialists came here and grabbed the African land assuming that the Africans did not own that land and did not deserve that land. When their time was over and they were to go back, the same Africans refused to give back the land to the people who owned it. This is what has caused us problems all these years to date. It has led to us fighting one another in land clashes and the Post Election Violence (PEV). All these things are around land. That is why we have these Bills before us in the House today to come up with reforms that, I hope, will help us resolve the problems on land ownership in this country. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, there is this issue of title deeds; that is a certificate or a piece of paper that confirms that you own the piece of land. Usually it is given after land has been registered; adjudication and all these process have taken place. I am mainly interested in what is in the village not the land in urban areas and cities. Land adjudication in the villages and the processing of title deeds takes a lot of time. It takes so many years. I remember in my constituency this was done sometimes in the 1980s. However, some places do not have title deeds up to today. So we wonder what the hell is going on in the Ministry of Lands. Why should this take that long? How much does processing of certificates need? In other places they do not have those problems. In some parts of the country it takes forever to have titles processed. It is an issue, I think the Minister and his officers should address particularly now that he is going to have a new law in his hands. Another issue that is really causing problems with respect to land ownership is this thing of succession. When someone dies, his family or her family is supposed to take over the ownership of his or her piece of land. I really do not know why it should take so long when these people are processing the transfer of ownership from the name of the deceased to the name of the living. The family has agreed on who should take over the land but it takes so long to have this processed and yet sometimes this process means a lot for the family. This happens yet nobody is raising a complaint about the transfer. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, that is an issue which the Ministry of Lands must find a way of dealing with. Access to information regarding the process of succession is not there. People do not have the information. It may take one year to know where to get the information and how to deal with it before the actual process of succession starts. This is so, yet we have land officers in the districts. We also used to have committees that were formed. There is a lot of ignorance amongst Kenyans as regards this process. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the grabbing of land or taking of the African land by the colonialists and later transferring the land to the people who mattered in the new African Government at Independence and the process continuing up to today has created the problem of squatters and landlessness. There are some places in this country where almost half of the population of a district is virtually landless if having a title deed to a piece of land is what makes the difference between someone being landless or having land. These are issues which I do not know how this country will solve. There are so many squatters. For example, in my constituency, I have about 7000 families. What I mean by families is someone with his wife and children. So, we have more than 20,000 people having no land. I do not know how the Government will sort out this matter in this country. We all know land is a limited resource in this country. It is not unlimited, where if you have more children, more land is created so that they can share it among themselves. There should be a way where those who do not actually own land have access to land, so as to make use of it when they need it."
}