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{
"id": 275226,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/275226/?format=api",
"text_counter": 244,
"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, now the constitutional requirement which was required of this House - and that audit must be carried out as spelt out in Article 68 - was to revise, consolidate and rationalize existing land laws. In all these three legislations – the Land Bill, the National Land Commission Bill and the Land Registration Bill - you will find that when they become law, nearly about 20 statutes will be repealed or provisions of those 20 statutes will be repealed. In relation to settlements that are dealt with in Part VIII of the Bill, you will find that, that will also require review of the law in place. But it will repeal the provisions of the Agriculture Act. There has been an oddity in the sense that whereas settlements and settlement of the poor and landless falls within the mandate of the Ministry of Lands, but the empowering legislation is in the Agriculture Act. So, it is sitting, in our view, not in the right legislation. So, if you look eventually at the Bills to be repealed by this Bill – the National Land Commission Bill, the Land Registration Bill and by the amendments that are coming courtesy of the work that has been done by the Committee, stakeholders and, of course, the Ministry of Lands, you will find that, indeed, we have, as a starting point, repealed a lot of legislation so that we do not have to have too many statutes connected with land. The Committee has given us a suggestion which I do not have any problem with that, indeed, at some particular time, the Attorney-General will be required to, again, consolidate these three Bills into one legislation. I see no problem with that. Indeed, if we want the Committee to be part of that single statute, I have no problem with that. That is because that will reduce the burden of having so many volumes and laws which could conveniently be put together into one legislation. In the process of consolidating, revision and rationalization, we have ended up with these three Bills largely because that is what was recommended by the National Land Policy. But the suggestion of the Committee would improve this further. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, now, there are issues in this law that are the matters of ideological positions that we take. I think even in the ideological question, there are people who will agree or disagree with them, and hon. Kabando here, I must say without any fear of contradiction that on those ideological issues, I take it and I know we will agree. But with others, we may not agree. So, the spirit of this Bill is to deal with fears and rights and have a compromise. The Constitution directs, and there is no way that we can run away from it on this very critical question, that we must prescribe a minimum and maximum land holding acreages in respect of private land. Members of the Committee were saying that everywhere they were going all over the country, there was nothing as popular as this particular dictate of the Constitution that we must prescribe a minimum or a maximum. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, do we do this by picking up a figure from the air or does it require a study to come up with a rational basis for fixing these maximums and minimums? By the way, there are areas I have gone to, where peasant farmers who own one acre. If you tell them that there is going to be a prescription of this type, you will find that there is a lot of opposition because some of them are saying that they own one acre of land and that they could do with another two acres or three acres. So, this greed for acquisition sometimes is not just with the land agents and those who own large tracts of land, but it permeates even at the level of the peasantry. The question then was, if you prescribed a minimum of 20 acres to a wheat farmer, for example. Would you commercially be able to reap the benefits of your labour if you are to do that on a mere 20-acre farm?"
}