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{
    "id": 563048,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/563048/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 54,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Mwiru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 107,
        "legal_name": "Alex Muthengi Mburi Mwiru",
        "slug": "alex-mwiru"
    },
    "content": "individual plots of the settlers. The complaint was that because it is a squatter settlement scheme, some people had already been displaced at the time of survey, planning and settlement. In the wisdom of the Committee, we thought that we could practically locate the plots of the people who were complaining. We had to send a Government surveyor and an experienced surveyor in our Committee to the ground to see whether these people were displaced or not. They went to the ground randomly. We saw that the people who were complaining to have been displaced were not displaced. They have built their houses on their plots. The only problem would have been that they had not been shown their plots properly and that is why they were complaining. As a Committee, we thought that, that was not a serious issue for us to pursue from any angle. We thought that the National Land Commission, and we have made this recommendation, should conduct a proper audit to see whether all the squatters who were supposed to have benefited in the Taveta Settlement Scheme, Phases I and II, benefitted and whether outsiders might have been settled on that area disregarding some settlers who had been on the ground. We recommend that an audit of the whole process be done to see whether it was completely clean. The other one was the Taita Sisal Estate in Mwatate Constituency, Taita Taveta County. According to the records and their three title deeds, Taita Sisal Estate occupies 30,000 acres of land on the ground. That is according to the title deeds they own. However, while on the ground, we realised that the said estate occupies more than what they deserve, more than what they are entitled to and more than what appears in their three title deeds. We realised that Taita Sisal Estate has enclosed areas of operation of all public utilities that were supposed to be accessible to the people of Mwatate. They have already fenced a railway substation within the area. So, people cannot access that particular railway substation. There is also a police patrol base that they are using as their own instead of being used as an institution to guard all other people in that particular area. The worst aspect is a public primary school which is attended by pupils from the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, even if a kid was to get sick in the school, parents cannot access the primary school to pick their kids. This is because the access road to the school, which is a public road, has been turned into a private road. So, those are some of the things that we observed there. They have also already enclosed Atasa Hill Forest. They have also cut down all the trees on that particular hill. So, it is like the estate is also trying to make that area a desert. This is because it is a gazetted forest but they have decided to use it for their own good. There is also an airstrip within that particular area but the sisal estate has also enclosed it. So, it can never be used anymore by any other person other than them in their own dealings in that particular farm. In a nutshell, Taita Sisal Estate has deprived most of the people within Mwatate area and in the surrounding access to most of the public utilities and institutions. In essence, they have expanded their land from 30,000 to almost 38,000 acres. As we were doing our recommendations, it was only prudent for the Committee to recommend that these public institutions be accessible for use by the public. In the process of doing this, the police patrol base, which they are using as their private entity or property, be there to defend the rights of every citizen. This is because each and every one there is a citizen, including the management of that particular sisal estate."
}