Protest as government buys back grabbed land

The Lands Ministry has been criticised for buying grabbed or illegally acquired land contrary to recommendations of a commission of inquiry into irregular allocations.

The commission of inquiry chaired by Mr Paul Ndung’u, which was also known as the Ndung’u commission, had recommended that the government should repossess all illegally acquired land.

But on Thursday, Lands minister James Orengo said the government was buying some of the land to resettle victims of the 2007 post-election violence.

According to the minister, the government lacked the mechanism to take over grabbed public land.

In 2005, the then Lands minister Amos Kimunya tabled a list of names of people who had been given land illegally. When the list from the Ndung’u report was presented in Parliament, some individuals voluntarily returned their parcels. However, they were not named to protect their identities.

At the time, a member of the Ndung’u commission, Mr Wanyiri Kihoro, said there were only 20 to 25 titles surrendered — most of which were for small pieces of land in Karura and Ngong forests.

This year, the Lands ministry launched a campaign to acquire idle land through the “Land Bank” programme under which the ministry offers to buy land at prevailing market rates starting from next month.

An advertisement has already been placed in national newspapers asking those willing to sell their land to inform the ministry.

Former minister

During a workshop in Nairobi on Thursday, the coordinator of the Kenya Land Alliance, Mr Lumumba Odenda said the government intends to buy land from a former Cabinet minister.

According to him, the Ndung’u report had indicated that the land in Molo was acquired irregularly. The workshop was convened by the Lands ministry to brief Members of Parliament on the draft National Land Policy.

“There are several people named as grabbers in the Ndung’u report selling land they had illegally acquired. And they are selling the land to same government which they grabbed the land from?” Mr Odenda said.

In response, Mr Orengo said: “We don’t have the mechanism to repossess some of this land.

“If after the acquisition that land was developed, it cannot be taken without paying something,” he said.

The minister also said there wasn’t enough land for use by the government. “The government cannot even get land to resettle IDPs.

The land has to be bought,” he told the meeting also attended by members of the parliamentary committee on Land and Natural Resources.

Mr Orengo said that every year, the government would set aside money to buy land. But Mr Odenda said the land bank may not work if the government buys grabbed land.

Mr Orengo said it had become difficult to repossess grabbed land as some of the owners have already gone to court to stop the process. He gave an example of the land on which the Eldoret law court is built.

“The person who grabbed the land went to court and the judge in same area ruled that the land is private,” he said.

The Rev Mutava Musyimi, also the chairman of the parliamentary committee on land, questioned the government’s move, saying it amounted to breaking the law.

Elsewhere, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Dr Boni Khalwale, warned that Parliament would resist any attempts to use taxpayers’ money to “compensate land grabbers”.

“As Parliament and as PAC, we will be reluctant to allow public funds to go towards purchasing land belonging to the public. Orengo should tell Kenyans whose interests he is protecting if they are not the interests of the public,” Dr Khalwale said.

The MP challenged the government to implement the recommendations of the Ndung’u Commission. The Ndung’u report was handed over to President Kibaki in 2004.

On Thursday, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights also said that buying back grabbed public land would be illegal.

“They are opening the doors for unjust enrichment. It defies the logic and spirit of reverting grabbed land to the public,” said commission vice-chairman Hassan Omar.

The Ministry of Lands has received Sh1.4 billion to resettle some of the 650,000 people who were displaced from their homes at the height of post-election violence last year.

Reported by Muchemi Wachira, Kibiwott Koross And Peter Leftie