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{
    "id": 951116,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/951116/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 73,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Garissa Township, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Aden Duale",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": " Hon. Deputy Speaker, we must review all these leases of 99 years owned by big companies. You cannot have big companies holding large chunks of land when Kenyans who are living around them are squatters. What kind of independence are we talking about? Land is the issue. I do not want us to go the Zimbabwean way about land redistribution. There must be a way by which these companies settle the people around them in the excess land they have. Most of them work in their farms every day. They have no place to even bury themselves when they die. I am saying this on behalf of some Kenyans. Where I come from, land is in plenty and we do not bury our people where we live. We go to Lang’ata Cemetery. Del Monte and the big farms in Kericho… Today, Mumias Sugar Company has mortgaged the land belonging to small-scale farmers around Mumias. Now they are part of the receivership. Mumias Sugar Company used the title deeds of those few small- scale farmers around the Sugar Factory to get loans and now everybody in Mumias, including the local peasants, are in problems. The Departmental Committee on Lands and the Government must find a way out. Every election, the political leadership makes it their business to offer a solution to the squatter problem. It becomes one of their key manifesto agendas. I saw a video clip of a politician – I do not know if it is true – promising, during his campaign, that he was going to build a bridge. After five years were over, he went back to the people to seek votes. They threw him in the river when he, again, told them that he would fix the bridge. That is how Kenya will be. We cannot promise to solve the squatter problem and then we do not solve it. I agree with the statement. Del Monte has huge tracks of land. We are not telling them to settle Hon. Jude Njomo or Hon. Duale, but to give land to the people who work in their farms. They should give land to the people who live around them and solve the squatter problem. We cannot have Kenyans being squatters in a place where a foreign company owns large tracts of land. You cannot do that in Italy. A Kenyan cannot own land in Italy and next to him are some Italian squatters. That cannot 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."
}