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{
    "id": 641752,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/641752/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 218,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Bunyasi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2511,
        "legal_name": "John Sakwa Bunyasi",
        "slug": "john-sakwa-bunyasi"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I appreciate that. The sentiments around land and privatisation are that people feel limitations to privatisation are going to hamper many industrial and other forms of development that this country is seeking to achieve. We must come to the realisation that if you have an interest in an asset, you surrender it the moment you receive compensation. That is the point I was making. That is what privatisation is all about. If an investor or the Government acquires land and compensates the owners, they surrender their interest in it. It cannot be that you sold your land, even jointly as a community, and you perpetually have a claim to it. You cannot have it both ways. There are issues, particularly in the turn of the last century and in the years preceding the Second World War, during which there was no compensation. There was forceful eviction and acquisition of assets. We must find a way in which to revisit those issues and get due compensation for the aggrieved parties if that is the case. There are many cases in which communities surrendered their land. Sometimes it might be treacherous but so was the colonial regime. We never completely overturned it. After they left we just stood in their shoes, took over what they left behind and inherited it We have to confront this issue otherwise we are going to frustrate genuine situations in which we are seeking to turn around the economy by creating opportunities for greater employment simply because we have a perpetual fascination with land. In conclusion, historical injustices must be tackled because it is a real monster. We must remember that Kenyans are very fascinated with land because there has been insufficient growth in other sectors. Every kind of development depends on land. Even if you are doing Information and Technology (IT) in offices, you are sitting on land. Some depend on land more intensely than others. In respect to dependence on land, if development in the industrial sector had been rapid as we had anticipated after mid-1960s, then people would have lived and survived without having owned an hectare of land because after all, when you retire you would probably have a financial instrument that can look after you and it does not have to be a piece of land you left behind. Failure of growth in the other sectors has heightened the importance of land to the extent that it has a virtual magical value in Kenya. That is the real problem."
}