Document proposes taxation of idle land

Wealthy land owners will no longer be able to hold on to vast tracts of under-utilised land when the new lands policy takes effect. It proposes a raft of measures aimed at ensuring land is put to productive use, including taxation of idle land. The policy aims at correcting historical injustices, including a lopsided system of land tenure inherited from the colonial administration.

A series of articles in the Daily Nation and Business Daily last week has shown how arbitrary authority to allocate land was transferred from the colonial governor to the leadership of the independence government, which used the powers to award vast holdings to the new African elite.

Boost productivity

The proposed taxation of large tracts of idle land is expected to boost productivity by reducing the temptation to hold on to large under-utilised land. The policy also seeks to ensure greater transparency in land acquisition.

It takes away the power to allocate land from the Commissioner of Lands and vests it in the National Land Commission. “The policy aims to demystify the subject of land and dignify land ownership so that people no longer have to talk about their holdings in low tones,” Lands PS Dorothy Angote said.

The new land laws would also address the land tenure system at the Coast, a region that has been the worst hit by the lack of an effective land policy.

Coast Province has the largest concentration of landless people in the country, a legacy of colonial laws that did not allow locals to hold titles to land. The law was never changed by successive post-independence governments.

The proposed policy calls for an inventory of land in areas with a heavy squatter population across the province. This should be followed by “appropriate constitutional and legal amendments for repossession of land that is unoccupied, abandoned, mismanaged and underdeveloped for the purpose of redistribution to the indigenous occupants”.

Local residents cite the lack of access to beaches and fishing landing sites as growing problems. The draft legislation calls for all access roads to beaches to be open to the public and the establishment of convenient utility plots to serve as boat landing sites.

Owners of beach plots who have freehold titles (absolute proprietorship) will be required to convert those into 99-year leases. The policy argues the Coast deserves special attention due to the “peculiar legal and historical” circumstances surrounding tenure in the province and says only systematic reforms can defuse the “potentially explosive” land issue there.