State, not developers, should take the blame on land grabs

The knee-jerk reaction beloved of our style of governance is always fraught with problems. It makes me wonder whether the decision makers sit on an electric cushion that helps them to react to crises only when the switch is turned on. My mind boggles!

Some of the decisions made defy logic but we are forced to go with them because some of our governors decided on either a cannabis-influenced mind or a sycophantic one, that the day to bring down buildings with a rusty bulldozer has arrived.

Looking at the post-mortem of the exercise, it appears to have been a PR stunt gone horribly awry. It went wrong because it was a half-baked decision and failed to deal with all the criminal elements behind the chaos that ensued before, during and after it.

The decision by the National Land Commission to allow Weston Hotel to keep their property but instead compensate KCAA (Kenya Civil Aviation Authority), as controversial as it sounds, may be the right one in the circumstances. The fairest thing to do to all the other investors was to let them compensate adequately for the land and keep the properties that had already been built and then draw a red line underneath such a practice going forward by strictly streamlining issuance of titles deeds and building approvals.

BULLDOZERS

I do not think anyone held a gun to the head of the officials who made the approvals for buildings on grabbed public land. Getting building approvals is a lengthy process involving several offices and professionals. The rational thing to do would be to focus the energy on punishing the rogue officials behind fake title deeds and building approvals.

Razing of buildings that were improperly built is nowhere near an indication that corruption in ministries such as Lands and county offices would be eradicated. Again, the authorities have chosen a noisy system to deflect attention from themselves when the blame lies right at the heart of the public offices where fake titles and approvals were made.

How on earth did corrupt officials behind the menace get away with such crime?

NLC has made a ruling on Weston Hotel but where was the regulator when the approval was being given? They woke up again to declare parts of Mama Ngina Drive in Mombasa as having been acquired illegally, only after the President turned up to officiate a project there.

Is it not part of their job to make sure such illegal allocations do not happen? Who is fooling whom?

The officials who were behind construction of properties on public land across the country, not the builders, are the ones who should face the bulldozers. If there is any justice in the world, the developers should be allowed to keep their properties, given the investment involved, or compensated for being misrepresented.

Misrepresentation is a criminal offence. Officials behind the construction of such buildings had a legal duty of care to advise correctly and make sure that no one would rely on a criminal act and build on grabbed public land or obtain a fake title deed for it.

Bribe money may have exchanged hands but what would have stopped an official from putting his foot down and standing up for the law? I repeat: No gun, most likely, was put to the corrupt officials’ head. It is unfair to blame one party to the chaos while the true architects of the crime go scot-free.

CORRUPTION

Lands has been mentioned time and again, including in the latest report by EACC in 2018, as one of the most corrupt ministries. If corrupt Lands officials failed to apply due diligence, why should an investor, albeit a bribing one, pay for their ‘negligence’ or be punished alone for it?

If the bulldozing was to fight corruption, then the honest and pragmatic thing to do is to sort out the mess at the root — at Ardhi House, NLC and the counties, where fake title deeds and all manner of permits are issued before buildings are erected. You can’t have property developers on riparian land without corrupt officials behind them.

Bulldozing of the controversial buildings just left rubble that further blighted towns that were teetering on disorder. As Attorney-General Kihara Kariuki said, “piga rungu” (hit the offender with a club) — but where it matters.

If we had applied the zeal as we did to build the standard gauge railway to fight land grabbing, we could have cured the cancer decades ago. Deflection tactics is a waste of time and makes a mockery of the citizens.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. These are words uttered by 16th US President Abraham Lincoln to inculcate honesty in governance.

Let us get real and deal with issues honestly. Corruption can’t just be swept under the carpet forever. Behind every successful land grabber is a corrupt official who should be punished first.

Ms Guyo is a legal researcher. [email protected] @kdiguyo.