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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kapondi",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I was saying that land is a very emotive issue because the livelihood of Kenyans hinges on land. Kenya is basically an agro economy. In this case of Syokimau, it is a very sad case in the sense that those ones who are vested with the responsibility of land administration in this country, more or less, found themselves in a situation of complicity. In the process, hundreds of Kenyans have lost their livelihoods and their hard- earned money over the years. They ended up investing in Syokimau with a very strong belief that their investments would, in turn, assist their families. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I speak, Kenyans who have lost a lot of property there have nowhere to go. Many begging questions arose when the Joint Committee visited Syokimau and subsequent interrogations that the Committee had with the Ministers concerned and other stakeholders. The nagging questions that the Committee found it very difficult to get answers were as follows. The Ministry of Local Government which supervises county councils was not aware, at all, that Syokimau was part of Nairobi; it was part of the City Council of Nairobi. That was until after the demolitions, when the Ministers appeared before the Joint Committee. That is when a shocked Permanent Secretary for Local Government was surprised to say that Syokimau was in Nairobi after being informed by the Permanent Secretary for Lands who produced the maps. However, for a long time, the Mavoko County Council approved the plans and collected land rent in Syokimau. Even the area Councillor of Syokimau reported to Mavoko. Therefore, there is a situation where Government Ministries are not properly informed of the jurisdiction of a particular area. It is, indeed, a very sad case. That is the case of Syokimau. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is good that the Minister is here. A serious allegation of forgery was made. It goes through the Attorney-General and the Government Printer. Kenyans in the process, with the trust that a Legal Notice that has been issued by the Government is valid, went ahead to do transactions in Syokimau. The Minister only realized that something was amiss after the demolitions. He realized that his signature had been forged. However, the Ministry did not take any remedial measure to correct that anomaly, if, at all, it existed. So, what happened is that hundreds of Kenyans ended up investing there. Interestingly again was the following: The owner, Kenya Airports Authority, (KAA), after going to court in 2004 because of what they believed was incursions into their land by intruders, never exhausted the court processes. As we speak, there is a pending court case between KAA and Syokimau inhabitants. It has not been concluded. So, for KAA to proceed to issue notices which were later acted on to demolish is, indeed, a very sad scenario. I do not know at what point in terms of law that a notice is more superior to a case before a court. In the process, because of what the Committee rightly called impunity, KAA decided to take a shortcut. It is a shortcut in the sense that they left a court case not concluded and proceeded with the demolitions. Now what happened to the hundreds of Kenyans who had invested there heavily? People had spent millions of shillings. It is this kind of impunity that we are saying should come to an end. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the raft of proposals and recommendations that we came up with as a Committee more or less - if this House adopts this Report - would go down to assist the many Kenyans who are suffering on a daily basis because of lack of information or hiding of information by the Ministry of Lands as is the case in the Syokimau issue. I am happy that, at least, the Minister has started cracking the whip. We have read that in the newspapers. A number of civil servants are facing the music in the Ministry of Lands. In Mitumba where thousands of hapless Kenyans were affected, the most unfortunate thing is that those villagers had been pushed from Bandari Estate where they used to stay. When a developer developed Bandari Estate, they were pushed to the remaining unoccupied piece of land. Now, interestingly, what the Joint Committee discovered is that the unoccupied land, which is Mitumba Village, had three title deeds. Two title deeds were surrendered and one is still in the hands of private individuals. So for KAA in this case to say: “This is our land. Get these villagers out”, there are more questions that beg for answers and you cannot get them from KAA. Even for them to say that, indeed, that is their land when they have an old fence and the remaining portion is basically a small area that has no relationship at all with the flight path during takeoff, one begs for more answers. There could be more than meets the eye in this particular case. All in all, what is critical is that those hapless Kenyans who were left in the cold and who are living in ramshackle structures cannot just be left like that. That is why the Joint Committee recommended that there should be some kind of compensation for those people. Some of them have known that place to be home for all the years of their lives. We found an old man who is almost 80 years old who gave a history of how the name “Mitumba” came up. When developers were putting up Bandari they said: “These are just mitumbas”. All these things were done with the full knowledge of the Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it, therefore, beats logic that the people you have given responsibility--- You have been told: “Stay there!” But many years down the line, you go there and demolish their structures. It is really a very sad case. For the Eastleigh issue, as a Joint Committee, we were thoroughly convinced by the security reasons given through a presentation by a Colonel who is the Airbase Commander. One thing which we have to admit here is that the security of this country is very critical. Whatever is happening currently in Somalia, the effects are being felt in Kenya. They are felt inside our country in areas like Wajir and Mandera in North Eastern Province. Without going much into details, the Committee recommended that it is critical that approvals by the Ministry of State for Defence, when it comes to any structure in Eastleigh, should be given priority. Those ones who have been responsible for acts of impunity should face the music. But all in all, it is important that as the Executive and as Government agencies, we respect the law. Let us not take shortcuts. We have reformed the Judiciary and we should trust it to give us a conclusion of any dispute. However, to leave them aside and proceed as if there is no law is the impunity that we need to fight in this country. With those few remarks, I beg to second this very important Motion."
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"content": "(Question proposed)"
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to support this Motion. First, allow me to congratulate the Committee for doing a very good job within a very short time. All of us watched the joint committee sitting until late, trying to unearth what led to the demolitions of these houses and also to unearth the rot that is in our Government Ministries. Let me say from the onset, that I would like to go back to what led to the two committees being asked to look into this matter. It is very sad that this Government acted with such kind of insensitivity. It is not even the question of who owns the land, but it is a question of how do you carry out a Government operation? If citizens of this country own land which the Government feels belongs to it and the citizens have already developed the land that the Government should have protected from the word go, if that is the case, one would have expected that the Government to carry out a process that is civil in nature. What we say as we described it then was really barbaric but that is history. I want to now come straight to the recommendations of the Committee and to discuss the report itself."
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"speaker": null,
"content": "[The Temporary Deputy Speaker (Mr. Mungatana) left the Chair]"
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"content": "[The Temporary Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Shebesh) took the Chair]"
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mbadi",
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"legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
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"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, it is very clear to me from the Report that there is a lot of confusion in the Government. There is rot in the Ministry of Land and it is high time that the Ministry is fixed. Probably we will ask the Minister and the Government to do what we did with the Electoral Commission of Kenya. We should sweep the whole Ministry, let them go home so that we can have Kenyans who can serve Kenyans well in that Ministry. We cannot continue to have a Ministry which does not know who owns land in this country. Land is such an important resource in this country that we cannot play around with. I know that the Minister for Lands is a reformist and without even waiting for Bills which are supposed to be generated and passed in this House, I would ask the Minister to think of cracking the whip. Some steps would just be administrative. Hiring staff to me is purely administrative. I think if the staff members in the Land Ministry are not ready to serve Kenyans, they should be told to go home. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, even though I can see the recommendations from the joint Committee are that we need to enact a number of laws, I see a problem that some of these laws should be in place by 27th February. We are almost proceeding on a long recess without the laws being brought to this House. I am aware that the relevant Ministry has already generated these Bills. My question is; why can these Bills not be brought to the House so that we debate and pass them with speed? The other question we need to ask ourselves is; why is it that various Government departments or agencies like the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) claim land that they do not protect? This is not only happening in Nairobi. If you go to Mombasa, you will find that the KAA will show you pieces of land that they claim to be theirs but they are not protected at all. I think it is high time that the Government took decisive steps to repossess the land that is owns. Let me come back to those Kenyans who have suffered. I fully agree with the Committee that the Government needs to take full responsibility and compensate these individuals for the loss they have incurred. It is not the responsibility of individuals to determine the legality of the documents they own. It is the responsibility of the Government to ensure that any document, be it a title deed or any other, which is supposed to be a legal document is legal. If we have a system where some unscrupulous individuals go round, conning and deceiving Kenyans, it is still the responsibility of the Government to protect those Kenyans. Whatever happened to these Kenyans, whether they owned genuine title deeds or not, it is the responsibility of the Government to protect their interest. It is also the responsibility of the Government to have warned them when they were constructing. If the demolitions were carried out when they were still laying the foundations, the damage would not have been as much as we saw. The picture that those demolitions gave to this country and the negative publicity is something that may not be easily repaired. We cannot “cure” it even by passing this Report. Investors have been discouraged from coming to this country because, if today you are given a title deed and tomorrow you are told that the title deed is fake, then how will you have confidence to invest in such a country? Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I also want to talk to Kenyans who are in the habit of grabbing every available space in this country. It is wrong and immoral. They are few and not many. We need to get these people and charge them. If we do not haves stiff laws or severe laws which can deter these Kenyans from grabbing every available land, I think this House needs to seriously think about coming up with laws which would deter those of us who would be encouraged to grab pieces of land. People have become very rich in this land and they are proud of the wealth that they have acquired by grabbing pieces of land. These are not poor people. People grab forest land, play grounds, schools land and it is unethical. This also includes cemeteries. This includes even church leaders."
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"content": "Church leaders?"
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Mbadi",
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"content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, yes, I want to repeat that. Even church leaders grab land. In fact, I am told that some of the worst grabbers of land are church leaders in this country. It is unethical, unacceptable and, as a country, we need to put a stop to this. I want to conclude my contribution by saying that what has happened of late is something that the Government needs to correct, first, by moving with speed to resettle these individuals and compensate them for the loss they have incurred. Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. I support the Motion."
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Hassan",
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"speaker": {
"id": 398,
"legal_name": "Yusuf Hassan Abdi",
"slug": "yusuf-hassan-abdi"
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"content": "Asante sana, Bi. Naibu Spika wa Muda. Nimesimama kuunga mkono Hoja hii. Nitazungumza kwa Lugha ya Kiswahili kwa sababu baadhi ya watu walioathiriwa ni wazungumzaji wa lugha hii. ."
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Hassan",
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"legal_name": "Yusuf Hassan Abdi",
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"content": "Watu wanaoishi katika vitongoji vya Nairobi wana shida nyingi sana. Hawana makao maalum na hawamiliki ardhi yoyote. Ni muhimu sana kwa Serikali yetu kuheshimu haki za watu wake. Wengi wao wanaishi katika vitongoji duni visivyo na huduma za kawaida kama vile maji, umeme na vyoo. Chini ya Katiba yetu watu hawa wana haki sawa na wananchi wengi wa taifa hili. Hawa walichangia pakubwa kuweka Serikali hii kupitia kwa kura zao. Hata hivyo, wanadhulumiwa kwa sababu wao ni wanyonge."
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