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{
    "id": 968339,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/968339/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 368,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wamatangi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 646,
        "legal_name": "Paul Kimani Wamatangi",
        "slug": "paul-kimani-wamatangi"
    },
    "content": "County Government, but some people had already been paid close to Kshs350 million yet bona fide land owners had not been paid. (5) There was also an issue on low payments of disturbance allowance to affected landowners. We engaged on all these and by way of reporting to this Committee, I want to highlight the main issues that we found. We realised that some of the documents issued by NLC, that one would be used to prove that their land had been taken, were actually photocopies. Some of those documents were issued in a hotel or a room in the evening when an NLC officer announced that he had arrived in town and that he had papers that were required for compensation. The officer then returned to Nairobi with a message that the original documents could not be traced. The prayers of the Petition sought the intervention of the Senate. In particular, the Petitioners sought the following reliefs- (1) To compel the National Land Commission (NLC) to avail the original award letters in respect to all affected land owners, for purposes of authentication; (2) Ensuring that the genuine land owners were compensated promptly; (3) Halting of the proposed construction of the Eldoret Bypass Project until all the affected land owners had been compensated in full; and, (4) Ensuring that no planned compensation of persons unlawfully occupying Government land would continue. Madam Temporary Speaker, the delayed compensation was the main issue in what I have highlighted. We had discussions with the affected persons and surveyed most of the parcels of land that were in question. We engaged the NLC and the Petitioners in Eldoret. We also invited all the petitioners, the NLC, the Kenya Highways Authority (KeNHA), which is the agency under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development that is mandated to carry out the responsibility of construction of highways. In the engagement, all these issues were thrashed out. We had to make determinations. One of the determinations we made were that it is not right for property belonging to Kenyans to continue being taken. For the purpose of the record of this House, it is not only in Eldoret, but in several of the ongoing Government projects. We have similar complaints on the construction of the road between Westlands and Limuru Town. In most of the urban centers, people are complaining that they have been rendered jobless and some have been put in serious trouble. This is because buildings that they constructed to rent out to tenants under loans have been marked for demolition. The tenants vacated while those buildings still have loans. Small businesses like salons, super markets and kiosks have been demolished without compensation. As a Committee, we decided that it is important that we not only reprimand, but also direct that in future, the Government should consider compensation at the conceptualization of a construction project. For example, a Chinese constructor wants to build a road from point “A” to “B” and he is awarded the contract. The cost of constructing the Eldoret Bypass Project, for example, is about Ksh15 billion, and by the time we went to site, the contractor had been paid almost 40 per cent of Kshs15 billion to proceed with the work. 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."
}