Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 625290,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/625290/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 146,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2712,
        "legal_name": "Tom Joseph Kajwang'",
        "slug": "kajwang-tom-joseph-francis"
    },
    "content": "I have also looked at Clause 39 on State regulation of land. This is the problem we have had in Samburu and Laikipia, where the Britons did military occupation of our land thinking that the land did not belong to anybody. Even when the Constitution says that the State can intervene in the running of these things, there must be a regulation through which this should be done. Government representatives should appear before a board or a panel and explain why it is necessary for the military, in defence of State, to use land belonging to a certain community differently from the way the community uses it. Otherwise, we will end up with issues similar to the one in Laikipia where people took large tracts of community land, which then becomes a military occupation. Clause 39 should develop criteria and regulations by which the Government can step in to regulate the use of any community land. Similarly, I have looked at the mediation provisions in Clause 40 and Clause 41(4). In many societies, the chief is the land surveyor, the adjudication officer as well as the person to whom land disputes are taken. If mediation is not organized in a proper manner, chiefs will have more authority and power. After mediation has been done by the panel as conceived in Clause 41(4) and (5)(d), the results of that process should be recorded in a register. I do not have to carry around pieces of papers that my old father carried around because of an adjudication that went to Kisii and he kept something in his bag and as a grandfather later, I have to discover what it was. I simply need to go to the registrar and get the formal document. I have very little time, but I want to speak about conversion, disposition and re-parcelling of land in Part V. There is need for making it very difficult for people to dispose of land in a way that has not been approved by the community they pretend to preserve. There is no problem in transferring land, but there must be a yardstick by which that is done. Finally, there is an offence in Clauses 42 and 43, which is called “people who sit on other people’s land”. The community was shy of talking about squatters. A squatter commits an offence, but that offence has not been categorised here. The punishment has also not been put here. We need to deal with squatter problem. That is what we have in Muhoroni and Koru areas where somebody simply sits on your land and you are unable to deal with him because the law has not specifically dealt on how to deal with squatters. You will take them to the Civil Court and even when you are through with them, you have to jail them through the civil processes. You find that it is untidy and you are unable to do it. So, you just give up and let that squatter be where he is. We need to say that it is an offence called “squatting on somebody’s land”, which is punishable by such an amount. This will reduce the squatter problem in this country. With those few remarks, thank you, Hon. Speaker."
}