As land commissioners exit, here are lessons for the incoming team

NLC chairman Muhammad Swazuri briefs residents of Skembo village in Mombasa on June 8, 2015 on how to fill forms for compensation of their land. Mr Swazuri has barred developers from a public land in Nairobi's Eastleigh estate. PHOTO | LABAN WALLOGA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • It became routine to find commissioners out of office, with information that they were out for site visits.
  • Again the question begs! Why would policy drivers concern themselves with running over to every site when they have planners, valuers and surveyors in their employ?

  • Or was this in the spirit of optimising on allowances through nights out of office?

The first batch of commissioners and chair to the National Land Commission exit office in just 10 days. This first team has taken a real beating during its tenure. Their experience almost disinterests most of those who had interest in succeeding them. But I would implore interested professionals not to lose heart but proceed and apply for the jobs once advertised. Failure by one team doesn’t necessarily set precedence for the next. In fact, it may just be that the first commission has provided a performance threshold below which no other team will score.

TECHNICAL OFFICERS

The Land Development and Governance Institute recently issued a policy brief that can be accessed on their site www.ldgi.org in which it dealt with a series of lessons from the tenure of the first commission. Let me therefore embrace some wider issues.

From the operative law, the process to appoint the commissioners and chair only kicks off once there is a vacancy or vacancies. This means recruitment of those to replace them, a process which will take not less than three months, won’t start until this first team leaves office. The implication is that we shall not have a fully constituted commission until late June or after, a gap which could negatively impact on some basic processes, including acquisition and compensation of land for public projects.

After they assumed office in February 2013, I visited some of the commissioners. Almost all those that I visited had stacks of technical files in their offices, something which took me aback. I had always thought the commissioners would assume high ground and provide policy direction and oversight over the technical team. The business of putting their fingers on parcel files with stacks of deed plans, allotment letters, applications for various transactions and all manner of other technical forms and documents looked misplaced. If this was to be their routine work, why then was the commission recruiting technical officers in survey, planning, land administration, valuation and law? One gets the impression the commissioners had more time in their hands than they needed and were getting paid for.

ROUTINE SCANDALS

It got worse when the matter of acquisition and compensation came up. It became routine to find commissioners out of office, with information that they were out for site visits. Again the question begs! Why would policy drivers concern themselves with running over to every site when they have planners, valuers and surveyors in their employ? Or was this in the spirit of optimising on allowances through nights out of office? Then the trips to Mombasa, huh! The commissioners would dispatch their high consumption and high maintenance vehicles to Mombasa by road, with their body guards and drivers. Each would then take their flight to Mombasa and reconnect with their individual guzzlers at the airport.

Then there is this matter of valuation that saw the commission chair, chief executive officer and some senior technical officers who included surveyors, valuers and registrars arrested and charged in court. Given the scandals that have hit the commission in its short six years, one would be forgiven for imagining that it’s not till the commission came into office that Kenya started acquiring and compensating for land for public projects. Why? Because until then, most of us had never quite paid heed to the process. I suspect that’s because there weren’t such routine scandals associated. If there were, then they were never reported on. But I quickly rule out the latter since I have been in the sector long enough. The indefatigable land sector stakeholders usually beat loud drums whenever major scandals pop up.

MEDDLING VALUERS

So it must be that the process was better done earlier, and check mechanisms worked better. When I checked with a senior valuer in the know, I was informed that in yesteryears, meddling valuers would be swiftly identified and laid off when the process was under the chief valuer in the ministry.

So from these lessons we have some fundamentals to consider. Isn’t it wise to consider changing the national land commission Act so that the recruitment of commissioners and chair can start about five months before the expiration of their term of office so as to avoid the gap herein highlighted? Two, given that the commissioners and their chair appeared to have more time than they needed, let’s reduce their number and make them part time. No change in constitution or law is needed. Three, given the challenges experienced by the commission on matters of compensation, let’s revert the role to the Lands Ministry.

Mwathane is a land surveyor: [email protected])