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{
"id": 951,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/951/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Lands",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, a lot of people are trying to make political capital by saying an individual Member within the Government was responsible, or other powerful persons were responsible, who may own land, or may have some interest in some of these areas. I think anybody who is saying that is first undermining the authority of the Republic of Kenya, as properly constituted under the Constitution. If they do not know it, they are also undermining the authority of His Excellency the President. All the decisions in accordance with the current Constitution must be in writing. Once it is a Committee chaired by the President, any Minister, or any member of Government who seeks to say that that decision was made otherwise, is undermine the authority of His Excellency the President. I think even the President was very clear on this when he was in Rwanda. He said he supported the demolitions in clear terms. What hon. Waititu was trying to say was that this decision had something to do with the Prime Minister for extraneous reasons, which had nothing to do with the demolitions. If hon. Saitoti was here and the other member, who were part of this Committee, I think they should stand up and say that it was their decision. Yesterday, during the debate I saw His Excellency the Vice-President and I thought he would take the opportunity of defending this decision that was made by the Cabinet."
},
{
"id": 952,
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"text_counter": 457,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Lands",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me just summarize by saying that I have made points about how demolitions should be done. I support this report because demolitions were not carried out in the manner they should be processed and undertaken. A decision of any organ of Government or any office in Government must be in accordance with the Constitution. But as regards the institution in the Ministry of Lands, I want to say that the Chair of the Committee is one of the persons who on many occasions have risen in many contributions to comment on matters to do with land. Unless we have a modern land information system, dealing with the problems in the lands office based on manual records that date back to 100 years, cannot stand the demands and stresses of a modern economy. It is something which we do not have a choice. I am prepared to take political accountability. I believe that even if you took somebody else to the Ministry of Lands, I think the institution will not be any different. For that particular reason, I think one of the strong points we should be making at the end of the day is to support the Committee in its recommendations, that the land information system is outdated, obsolete and it is an antic relic of a system that does not prevail in any modern democracy, where title deed to land must be protected."
},
{
"id": 953,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/953/?format=api",
"text_counter": 458,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Lands",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
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"content": "The second reason why I am saying that it is important to be careful about demolitions is in terms of Article 40 of the Constitution. It says very clearly that when it comes to compensation in relation to any land, that a title deed in itself is not the only standard to be used. Even institutions, where people do not have title, an interest in land is not necessarily exemplified or concretized in a title. In fact, most of the land in Kenya, as I speak today, has no titles. One should not be heard to be saying that if somebody does not have title to land, then he is not entitled to compensations. There are all notions in the law that, again, I think my learned friend Millie Odhiambo will support this, that where it comes to property law, there are principles of equity that sometimes go against innocent Kenyans that may have bought land for value, but not knowing that there was no proper titles. As I speak today, none of the people who derived title from Mlolongo--- I have not seen anybody who derived title from Mlolongo, or one of those entities coming out with a title to show that, indeed, they had a proper title registered with the Commissioner of Lands. That is not to say that they cannot be compensated. If you say they have to be compensated then you have to demonstrate the legal right or the constitutional right. So, the formulation that the Committee has come with, an ex-gratia payment does not mean that it is of any lesser value. But it means that the person to be paid does not have to demonstrate that they have a legal right or a constitutional right, which means not withstanding any other considerations in the law, they should be awarded some kind of damages. I think this should be done on a case by case basis. Let all these matters be interrogated. A lot of time, you will find people who will represent themselves for compensation, maybe just professional squatters, or people who really do not derive a proper title from any of this kind of situation."
},
{
"id": 954,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/954/?format=api",
"text_counter": 459,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Lands",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
},
"content": "The final point that I want to make, unless Kenyans are prepared to live together sharing the territory called Kenya, resolving conflicts in land will continue to bog us from centuries to century. We cannot live in a situation where some people in this country, let us say in Taita Taveta, own 90 per cent of the county and the rest of the community is confined to 30 per cent of the land. When you go to Taveta Constituency itself, you find about three or four individuals owning more than 95 per cent of the land in that county. The problem that we have with land is that, and I can tell you without fear of contradiction, we have speculation on land. We have people who cannot access land, because it is in the hands of a few people, who are using it for speculative purposes, or they have public land which they are not using, and is idle. I would ask this hon. House, by the time we bring the land Bill, especially in relation to public land, that anybody who is holding public land and is not using it, that land should be given back to the public. It should go back to the public and given to the people of Kenya, who have nowhere to stay or nowhere to earn a living. I think that, that is a good call. It is not for cosmetic reason that we said in our Constitution that every Kenyan must be guaranteed access to land. It may not mean ownership but every Kenyan has a right to access and security to land. I believe that with the fullness of time; when we have the full regime of the law relating to the land sector, we will be able to resolve these matters once and for all."
},
{
"id": 955,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/955/?format=api",
"text_counter": 460,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Orengo",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Lands",
"speaker": {
"id": 129,
"legal_name": "Aggrey James Orengo",
"slug": "james-orengo"
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, with those few remarks, I beg to support."
},
{
"id": 956,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/956/?format=api",
"text_counter": 461,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ojode",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security",
"speaker": {
"id": 197,
"legal_name": "Joshua Orwa Ojode",
"slug": "joshua-ojode"
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"content": " Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, let me also add my voice on this Report which was tabled by hon. Musyimi and his team."
},
{
"id": 957,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/957/?format=api",
"text_counter": 462,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ojode",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security",
"speaker": {
"id": 197,
"legal_name": "Joshua Orwa Ojode",
"slug": "joshua-ojode"
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"content": "I do concur and accept that the Report has come out very well. If you look at the whole Report, it has given proposals on a number of laws which need to be enacted in order for us to safeguard the interest of the common mwananchi ."
},
{
"id": 958,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/958/?format=api",
"text_counter": 463,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ojode",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security",
"speaker": {
"id": 197,
"legal_name": "Joshua Orwa Ojode",
"slug": "joshua-ojode"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do commend the entire team for having gone beyond what they were supposed to do and propose that we should fast-track some of the laws in order for us to keep law and order in various corners of this country. I came across an article which talks about reforms in the Ministry of Lands. This is Article 13.7 on page 63. If we enforced what is recommended in this Report, then we will have minimal problems on matters which border on security. I will give some examples. We have a land buying company known as “Mbo-I-Kamiti”. You and I know that Mbo-I- Kamiti has made several people die. In order for us to avoid death cases of some sort we need to fast-track the introduction of the Court Bailiffs Act in order for the officers to use it for purposes of serving the court orders. This is because many a times you will find that if the police do not honour the court orders, then we have a big problem of people killing one another. The chairman, secretary and a number of other officials of Mbo-I-Kamiti have been killed because of land. Land is an emotive and very sensitive issue and we need to come out with laws that will govern the issuance of titles."
},
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"id": 959,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/959/?format=api",
"text_counter": 464,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ojode",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security",
"speaker": {
"id": 197,
"legal_name": "Joshua Orwa Ojode",
"slug": "joshua-ojode"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I had a privilege also to serve as an Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Lands. What hon. Orengo is saying is true; that we have an archaic system of land registry. As long as we have obsolete equipment, we will not go far. It needs complete overhaul. It needs not just computerization but also new equipment for land registry so that if you click a button you will definitely know that this land belongs to hon. Ojode or hon. Ethuro who is the Chair now."
},
{
"id": 960,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/960/?format=api",
"text_counter": 465,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Ojode",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security",
"speaker": {
"id": 197,
"legal_name": "Joshua Orwa Ojode",
"slug": "joshua-ojode"
},
"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I also said in this House on Thursday, last week that there is a firm known as “Swani Coffee Estate in Thika”. Swani Coffee Estate was sold to Terapla Limited. I mentioned that last week on 8th Thursday."
}
]
}