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{
    "id": 810213,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/810213/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 607,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kipipiri, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Amos Kimunya",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 174,
        "legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
        "slug": "amos-kimunya"
    },
    "content": "I am very happy with the whole flow of this Report. I agree that we need the Director of Criminal Investigation to look deeper into some of these issues. I want to take cue from what Hon. Nyoro has said. We went to Bomas of Kenya as part of the process of creating the new Constitution. As a result of the land grabbing which took place in the 1990s there was the formulation of the Njonjo Land Commission and Ndung’u Land Commission. One of the things which came up is that the duties of the then Commissioner of Lands were allowing people to mess up with our land management system. Therefore, it was decided that perhaps these duties should be moved from an individual level and institutionalised as the National Land Commission. We all thought we were safe and that land would be managed and valuations done properly. We are seeing the ills we were trying to cure of Government land being sold at the lowest price and Government buying land at very high prices. We are seeing more escalation of prices. This matter becomes very clear if you look at the land acquired for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), schools and roads. This is almost creating some speculative purposes. People are busy looking where the next road is planned to buy land because the NLC will overvalue it. The public ends up losing the value of that road because all the money goes to compensate people for the land. We need to figure out when the rain started beating us and how we can help as a House. I believe when discussing the Land Value Index Laws we might get an answer. This trend has gone beyond Government acquiring land from members of public. You can see development projects being impeded by the haggling between two Government bodies, where one owns the land. They say the Government cannot use the public land until they are compensated. I believe the Departmental Committee on Lands will look at this to see how we can deal with it. I am also surprised because this land was planned in 1984, the owners had notice they were the ones who had applied for re-planning. However, they waited for 33 years speculating on the land, or probably when people could not remember what had happened to say that the land had been occupied by a school and hence they needed to be compensated. I wonder whether this was triggered by the hefty SGR compensation which people saw. We need to ask ourselves when a similar thing happens, should we compensate at the rate which would have been used in 1984 or the current rate? We do not want to end up having a school that is now worth Ksh2.3 billion on 13 acres of land. If you know where Ruaraka is land cannot be valued at Ksh239 million per acre. Land in Muthaiga is not going for Ksh230 million per acre, it is around Ksh200million per acre. If you are buying land in Ruaraka even those plots, I doubt if you will buy at that price. But, because it is the Government buying and we know it is a cartel then it is bought at that price. As we were told by the Leader of the Majority Party, the Kshs.1.5 billion seems to have disappeared into several cheques and the owner is still waiting for the balance to accrue in his account. It tells us that this was a major rip-off. Actually, they should return that money so that we can end up with value for money. We are talking about building affordable houses in the Big Four Agenda. If the Government is going to acquire land across the country for the Big Four in this fashion, then you can be sure that the houses we have been told will cost Kshs1.5 million will be a pipe dream. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposes only. Acertified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}