I spent part of last week attending the inaugural Kenya Urban Forum at Lake Naivasha Resort. My presentation spoke to the land question. Prior to this, President William Ruto ushered in elements of Kenya’s land question during a “Q & A” session with Linus Kaikai of the Royal Media Services soon after officially opening the forum. The President reiterated intent to move the valuation role from the National Land Commission to the Ministry responsible for Lands. However, unlike when he spoke to the issue from Isiolo, he indicated that the pertinent law will need to first be changed. This is indeed so. But in trying to change the law, the President should expect quite some beating. Land sector stakeholders in Kenya can be quite resilient on such fundamental issues.

Land fragmentation and affordable housing

The question was also put on his views to the continued fragmentation of agricultural land. He used the opportunity to emphasize the importance of providing affordable housing, in the process vindicating the current government initiative. The President pointed out that demand has driven the subdivision of peri-urban land into small residential plots since urban residents cannot afford the available houses and mortgages in inner cities. Therefore, in their quest for housing, urban residents have opted to go for the affordable plots of land available in peri-urban areas on which they construct owner occupied houses. The current affordable housing project is expected to contribute to reversing this trend by providing comparatively cheaper housing to urban residents.

During my presentation in the parallel session on the land question, I added to our contemporary issues. While appreciating progress in developing and putting in place new policy, legal and institutional frameworks, I raised the need for the country to remain vigilant, and to evaluate and review these frameworks with experience, or to suit emerging needs. In this regard, the review of our 2009 national land policy, which was due after ten years, remains outstanding

Ndung'u Report: Way forward with listed parcels?

I also pointed out the conundrum we have found ourselves in on the matter of parcels listed in the 2004 Ndung’u report. The report listed over two hundred thousand parcels considered to have been irregularly or illegally allocated from public land. Our legal framework required the national land commission to review all these grants of land and make suitable recommendations within five years. This was between May 2012 and May 2017. Appeals to the 12^th parliament to extend the timeline failed. Vested interests may defeat any such efforts with the current parliament.

While the courts, moved by our investigation agencies, have done a good job handling related cases, the pace is too slow. On the other hand, many of the listed parcels were slapped with caveats and are unavailable for planning and development. I challenged ourselves to appreciate that it is expensive keeping so much land outside the national development processes, and urban development, for close to two decades. Hard policy and political decisions on the matter are desirable.

Date: 22^nd June, 2023