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    "id": 822678,
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    "content": "making of that decision and neither did the Government at the highest level. It was an entity within the public sector that made that decision that had an impact on the people of Kajiado and Narok. There was a standoff and things came to a standstill. Madam Temporary Speaker, if you read the World Bank requirements on reticulation or distribution of electricity or construction of power lines, they are onerous on the part of developers and governments. They are required to observe safety of the people and give sufficient compensation for the people who will be affected by the construction of the power lines. That was possible because in the implementation of that project, there was no legal foundation to give the people protection. A lot of them had to go back to the World Bank documents that spelt out that. Luckily, it was a project that was funded by World Bank. It took them to slow down the process so that the Maasai people in Narok and Kajiado counties could be talked to. It was said that when this Bill was being moved in the construction of Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the issues of compensation were messed up. The public has to pay a lot of money. I am happy because this came from the Leader of Majority. These are some of the things that we will need to look at. I stand here without fear and able to repeat whatever I have said. I also stand here without fear of what I have done in the past. Right now, as we speak, the National Land Commission (NLC) has become one of the greatest disasters in the affairs of this nation. The constitutional linking process over the years on the issue of land was so critical. People have been trying to determine a way in which land can be administered in a way that the people and the county will benefit from that important resource and also, in realisation that protection of title is important in a democratic country like Kenya. However, you must have a land regime where private ownership of land does not go against the general public good. So, we had a good constitutional foundation and power was taken away from the national Government on matters to do with land. We had powers taken away from the Chief Land Registrar and the abolition of that office in the hope that these changes will bring better days to this country. One of the reasons why SGR has become costly to this country is that, it is planned. If you go to Tanzania, they are building their SGR which is parallel to the central land in Tanzania. The former East African Railways and Harbours Corporation was the biggest land owner, second only to governments of the three countries: Tanzania – former Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda. Even now, the Kenya Railways owns a lot of public land. They were given those parcels of land way before the advent of Government, as we understand it today. It was during those days of the Imperial British Empire that a lot of this land was acquired. This is something which also happened in the roads sector. We have a nation that has been built after the discovery of motor vehicles. The automobile was built a while before the founding of this nation, yet if you look at our town planning, it looks as if our towns were built when people used to move in horse-drawn coaches on the streets. When we had the opportunity to build one of the biggest highways in the Republic along Mombasa Road, we found that it had been eaten up by land grabbers and those who never tire from taking and acquiring public land. There is one law of the land The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}