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{
"id": 951451,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/951451/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
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"content": "The Constitution set out a framework with which to deal with the land question including ways and means of dealing with historical injustices in so far as land is concerned. Particularly in the Coastal, Central Kenya and Rift valley, there are many areas where the land question continues to be a big problem that needs immediate resolution. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is important that so long as we do not have any means of employment for a majority of Kenyans, land seems to be the only available resource for the ordinary people for purposes of settlement, shelter and even earning their living. Therefore, the land question in this particular contest forms a very important pillar in relation to what the Government needs to do. Having said that, it is also important that we protect our water towers and forests. You have seen what has been going on in Brazil along the Amazon. It has brought a worldwide concern about the effects of climate change. Climate change is with us, unless we are able to resolve it as a nation because the effects of it can be local depending on how we manage our environment, but even the little things we do within our immediate environment affect the world as a whole. Therefore, land being a finite resource we must look for more imaginative and innovative ways of trying to give our people shelter and the way to earn their living. Mr. Speaker, Sir, China has one of the largest populations in the world. Most of China is arid and semi-arid. A lot of China is desert. If it is not a desert, then it is in regions where sustaining human life is extremely difficult. Therefore, the growth of the Chinese economy has helped the big population living in China to try and immigrate into towns and industrial enclaves in order to earn a living. In Kenya, probably what we need to do, because this will be a persistent problem, that people continue looking for land for speculation. I think this must be stopped. Those owning large tracts of land must surrender that land to the State to settle the people who do not have land. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you look at individual Kenyans who own large tracts of land, some of the land they own is bigger than some of the counties in Kenya. They did not get this land as a matter of right or they inherited it from their clans or their families, they got this land from the State. Historically, if you look at the Delameres, for example, the land they got did not belong to them by inheritance, but they were given by a colonial state, and some of this needs to be addressed. We have reached a level where, for example, we find foreigners in Laikipia being given 100,000 acres of land and there are local communities who are living in Laikipia or Samburu who do not have land. These are nomadic people who need to move with their livestock. We have wildlife which must have corridors for them to move around. Mr. Speaker, Sir, to enable Kenyans feel that the land question is being dealt with properly, directly and fairly, those who own large tracts of land must explain what they are doing with that land. If you look at the National Land Policy as it exists today, there is a requirement that there should be some kind of tax on land which is left idle. There is a lot of land in Kenya which belongs to individuals rightly so, but these pieces of land are either leases or freeholds which were originally public land. If they cannot find a way of using that The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}