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{
    "id": 814330,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/814330/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 291,
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    "content": "will claim so much money such that it stalls that project for two years. A case in point is the wind power project that was done in Turkana. By the time that contract was completed and the wind power was ready, there was no line to evacuate that power. There were issues with compensation of land owners. This is a very serious matter. I am very happy that this Bill has come in time to solve that problem. In Ethiopia, for example, as my colleague has alluded to, they have done huge projects, be it rail or road. We went there one time and the amount of money that has been spent on acquiring that land is so insignificant that many of the projects are completed on time. This is a man-eat-man society. We cannot develop when we know that half of the money that is supposed to be spent on a project will be used to compensate people - some of them who have acquired that land in an unscrupulous manner. This country must change that kind of behaviour. For once, it must change. I am happy I have seen in this Bill that if your land is acquired, you can be compensated with another piece of land somewhere else. People do not want that. They want money and nothing else. They want to be paid in cash. They do not want another piece of land. Sometimes I wonder why their land is better than the land being offered as compensation. In fact, if you want to give them a better piece of land than what the Government is acquiring for public use, they will want to be paid money. They will say they do not want any other land and want to be paid in cash. This will not help the coming generations. This development will not stop. The SGR is now up to Naivasha. Many of our neighbouring countries and trading partners with whom we are supposed to jointly engage in some of the huge projects like pipeline, road and rail are complaining that we cannot do it jointly because land compensation rates in Kenya are so high. They tell us to do our side and they will do theirs then we can meet at the border. That has happened. I am aware of that. In the last Parliament, I heard a Cabinet Secretary explaining to one of the Committees that I was a Member of that some of our neighbouring countries have said that compensation rates of land in Kenya are so high and full of corruption. When the National Land Commission was put in place through the new Constitution, many of us thought that that problem would be solved at that level. It became the beginning of the problem. I sit on the Public Accounts Committee. The other day the NLC came to explain how they spent Kshs2 billion on compensation and they could not tell us anything about that payment. They do not have any records, L/R Nos., or names of the people they compensated. Kshs2 billion is not a small amount of money. If the NLC that was supposed to handle those issues cannot do it, I wonder who will do it for this country. Land is an emotive issue in our country. That does not mean that you need to stop the Government from doing what they are supposed to do for the public good. If we do not allow the Government to do infrastructure projects or any other project that they intend to do, will they do it in the sky if not on land? This is a very serious matter. I thank the Committee for the good work it has done. I have read the Report. They did public participation. They even went further ahead and said that the courts should not issue unnecessary injunctions when the Government acquires land compulsorily for public good. Somebody just runs to court and stops the Government from acquiring a quarter piece of his land in Likuyani or Lugari, saying that until he is paid billions of shillings, a project of Kshs200 billion will be stopped. The project costs Kshs2 billion and the land in Lugari is Kshs500, 000. Who will lose? The project will cut across many counties. It could be coming from Turkana all the way to Mombasa. My friend here knows that matter very well. He has stopped many projects. Who will lose? 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."
}