Wilberforce Ojiambo Oundo

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 241 to 250 of 1537.

• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute on this matter. Let me go on record that I have spent almost 30 donkey years administering the various legislations in this particular field. So, it is an area that I am extremely conversant with, and I know the challenges that have been there before that led to this particular Bill in the House today. view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Bill basically sets the terms and conditions of the relationship. More fundamentally, it sets a single tribunal, unlike in the past where we used to have separate tribunals; One for residential housing and another one for commercial. Good enough, it moves the management of the tribunal from the Cabinet Secretary (CS) in charge of the matter presently, to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) as required in the Constitution. It is hoped in such a manner, therefore, that we would have a more robust and professionally run tribunal that can offer justice to the litigants who ... view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: The idea to collapse the various Acts dealing with the relationship between the landlord and the tenant has been on the table since early 1990s. We have had the Distress for Rent Act, the Rent Restriction Act, the Land Lord and Tenant (Shops, Hotels and Catering Establishments) Act that have generally set and determined the relationship between the landlord and the tenant. view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: The world all over, through literature, seems to be a conclusion that any form of rent controls based on the amount of rent paid is counterproductive in the market. It distorts the market. If there are any people in this country that are under housed, they are the low income earners; those ones under the restricted rent of Kshs.2500 and below. Those are the people who are inadequately housed simply because no sane investor would want to invest in that category of housing and have to spend most of his time before the tribunal trying to resolve even basic issues ... view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: A relationship always arises between a landlord and a tenant. A landlord is an investor who has invested in a property for the sole purposes of getting returns. The returns could be regular income in terms of rent as well as capital appreciation which can be realised at the point of disposal. A tenant is someone seeking shelter, has no place of his own and has no present capacity to have and own housing. So, it is a purely commercial and economic arrangement where there is demand and supply. Obviously, that indicates that there are some fundamentals that need to ... view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: The second issue that seems to have been brought back here that might have to be relooked at later is protections of rights. Both the tenant and the landlord are expected to have some rights. However, looking at the Bill, it is jumbled up. It is never clear exactly why each party gets their rights. There are quite a number of issues in the Bill that do not come out clearly. A tenancy is a commercial arrangement between the landlord and the tenant. The talk all over the world is that we need to have less Government, less interference, less ... view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: Secondly, there has been this talk that everybody in this country requires housing, although the definition of housing has been misunderstood all over by people who do not understand the principals and policies of housing. It does not mean all housing is housing. As long as you have shelter and you can pay for it, you indeed have housing. Naturally we would have a legislative framework that underpins or organises the sector as an economic activity, and to some extent, as a social activity. Many times there have been cries and complains from both sides of the divide. The landlords ... view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: One of the issues when we were dealing with the ease of doing business – which was scrapped by the World Bank because of unethical practices – has been the issue of how we handle our property laws. One of the reason why our ranking has never gone high is because our laws are draconian, and they become an impediment in solving issues. In this Bill, the same practice has been maintained. We will have endless cases before the tribunal and it is defeating the whole purpose why we chose to make these changes. Another issue that seems not very ... view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I support. view
• 5 Oct 2021 in National Assembly: major disincentive to invest in housing and any form of housing and real estate that is controlled by those restrictive Acts of Parliament. view