Entry Instance

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

{
    "id": 768446,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/768446/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 338,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kubai Iringo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1574,
        "legal_name": "Cyprian Kubai Iringo",
        "slug": "cyprian-kubai-iringo"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Bill. The original Act is quite old. It was enacted in the colonial days. To some degree, it had become almost outdated. Again, some of the sections which were put there were punitive; others were difficult to achieve. That is why we have ended up with so many problems in the Public Trustee offices, especially in the administration of the estates of deceased Kenyans whose beloved ones left behind struggle day in, day out, and some of them pass on before they get to benefit from the estates left by their loved ones. If you go to our land registries, you will find that they are littered with many title deeds which belong to deceased persons. And the survivors of these deceased persons, most of them are old widows who are illiterate and they cannot access those title deeds because they do not have letters of administration, letters of grant or instruments to make them heirs of those property. If you go to our banks - I having been a banker for some years - you will find that there is a lot of money lying in what they call unclaimed balances or dormant accounts, because the next of kin of the deceased cannot access them. This has been so because the process of transferring property of a deceased person to the inheritors or heirs is so cumbersome and clumsy. Therefore, you find that people despair not to go for this money and start looking for other ways of livelihood, knowing very well that there is some money lying in a bank or there is a property which cannot be mortgaged to get the family out of an illness or any other calamity. I support the Bill because it removes most of these hurdles. At the end of the day, even these monies in banks will be collected and put in a consolidated account from where it can be invested. Once the bona fide owners of this money come forward, at least they can receive the original amount plus the interest accrued because the amount will have been invested to generate some funds for the beneficiaries. When this Bill comes before the Committee of the whole House, I intend to bring amendments to give timelines and the value of the properties involved. If a certain period has expired and succession has not been done and maybe the property in question is valued at less than the fee which one is supposed to pay, like my brother the Member for Tharaka has said, for you to get inheritance of a one-acre piece of land in Meru, which might only be worth Kshs200,000, and the lawyer will ask for a similar amount, why do you go for it? You better leave it. So we need a clause so that the Government can subsidise the fees. We have thousands of widows who require their title deeds which are lying in registries. In Maua, for example, we have thousands of them. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}