Angry letters traded between ministers spoke volumes of rift within Cabinet

One of the early agreements by the exiting colonial government and the incoming independent government was that there would be no free land to dish out, a decision that caused fractures between conservatives and radicals.

By July 1963, the matter was brought to Parliament by Yatta MP Gideon Mutiso who asked “indigenous people to be resettled in their own lands” and that settlements schemes be free. How to satisfy landless Kenyans was one of the tests Jomo Kenyatta faced early on as PM.

When this motion was brought, Kenyatta called a meeting at 4.15pm on July 16, 1963. In attendance were Finance minister James Gichuru, Agriculture’s Bruce Mackenzie, Lands and Settlement’s Jackson Angaine and Parliamentary Secretary (assistant minister), Ministry of Finance, Mwai Kibaki.

The talking points were drafted by Lands PS, N.S. Carey-Jones on the government policy. As he sent the note to Angaine he scripted a comment with a ball-pen: “To call up Kanu Parliamentary Group meeting to discipline members.”

The answers to be given to Parliament on the Mutiso motion was that the taking away of land was “now history” and to “try to reverse it would destroy the economy”.

The second point was that settlement schemes were to correct the situation in an orderly way over time without destroying the economy. On land to be given for free, the Cabinet agreed that Parliament should be told that to buy land for transfer to African ownership and settlement, the government had to borrow money and to repay it and that it would be “absurd” for it to borrow money in order to give it away.

It was also agreed that “if the land were given free, the value for all land owned by Africans would be reduced to little or nothing, and no one would be able to borrow on the security of his land and that nobody would lend the government money to lend to settlers for development.

Kenyatta dilemma

Mr Carey-Jones had put another note: “To accept this motion is impossible; to reject it would be embarrassing”. It was a dilemma facing Mr Kenyatta.

“There is no provision whereby the minister can exempt poor settlers from paying for their land. Moreover, the government is required to repay the borrowed money for purchase of land and for this reason no exemptions can be made,” Angaine told the House.

Another question brought to the Senate in August 1963 was on the resettlement of freedom fighters. It was pointed out that the government policy was that “no particular community would be singled out for special consideration with the exception of all those who had been employed on the farm to be settled for four years.

On another front, poor working relations between Lands minister Angaine and his Agriculture counterpart MacKenzie led to the failure of settlement schemes in the decade after independence. The two traded unfriendly letters, though in public they exhibited an all-is-well mien.

The official file that contains correspondence between the two ministers reveals that when Mr Angaine came under pressure from the World Bank over the failing schemes, he decided to pass the buck to Mr MacKenzie. In a letter dated October 26, 1967, the Lands minister intimated that it was the Agriculture ministry which was not giving the required support.

“At the present,” wrote Mr Angaine, “I am under considerable pressure from the (World Bank) and the Commonwealth Development Corporation concerning inadequate staffing on settlements schemes and also the shortage of livestock on schemes.”

For 55 days Mr MacKenzie sat on his reply, and when he did, on December 20, it was a slow-punch political attack on Mr Angaine and his ministry officials.

Situation unattended

“Your letter did not come as a surprise (and) it is disturbing that you have left the staff situation unattended to this critical stage,” he said in the opening salvo.

Kenya had apparently given definite undertakings to the World Bank about staffing levels at the schemes and that grade cattle would be made available to the new settlers to sustain a dairy industry.