Time bound Review of Grants of Public Land

We must thank the Member of Parliament for Kilifi North, Hon Owen Yaa Baya for intervening on a matter that remains outstanding. This column highlighted that the National Land Commission Act provides for the review of grants and dispositions of public land to establish their propriety and legality but only within the first five years of commencement of the Act. The NLC Act commenced in April 2012. Therefore, this timeline expired from May 2017. Indeed, any further attempts by the NLC to address related matters have met with legal challenges. So while the country beats up the Commission for not doing more to recover irregularly allocated public land, its hands remain tied by this lacuna in the law. For this reason, any repossession efforts by the NLC will suffer adverse consequences until this matter of timeline is addressed.

International attention

Loliondo division, in the Ngorongoro District of Northern Tanzania, has been in the news lately. There’s been a flurry of protest notes and statements released on social media, email, local and international news outlets. The content developed on Loliondo within less than two weeks is amazing. It continues.

Non-state institutions, particularly Civil Society Organisations, have moved with speed to draw international attention to the matter. The government of the United Republic of Tanzania was reported to be evicting the Maasai of Loliondo from 1500 square kilometers, just about 370,000 acres, of their ancestral land in disregard of their rights. This is aimed at making way for a game reserve within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which is said to be part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. Allegedly, an international investor is interested in developing safari tourism within the subject site.

Politicians will make promises touching on any sector. Then they will give you a “know-it-all” look, regardless of the implications the promises may have to existing policy and law. It therefore helps to take a step back and appreciate that these promises could end up influencing development, and may drive changes in policy and law. Sectoral experts must therefore keep their ears close to political leaders, to parliament and to county assemblies. Then they may be able to influence ideas and discourse, and perhaps strike meaningful compromises for progressive development.

Populist promises on land

Those who have been paying good attention may for instance have picked up some of the riveting election promises made touching on the land sector. There’s been promises to buy out farms that belong to absentee owners, subdivide and allocate them to the landless. There’s been promises convert ADC farms to settlement schemes for settlement of persons. These are bold commitments. Quite obviously, they are popular with the targeted voter baskets. Indeed, our laws have provisions that would allow the purchase of land for settlement of landless people. The Land Act establishes a Land Settlement Fund for such purposes. This Fund isn’t quite new and has been used to buy land for the resettlement of people in the past, only it was differently named and managed prior to the new constitution.

It’s just over a year since ardhisasa, Kenya’s online land management system, was launched. As observed in earlier write-ups, this system was long overdue. Kenya currently boasts of over 11 million title deeds. This number continues to rise. In their hard form, and with manual procedures, managing such vast records is overwhelming. Therefore, every effort should be made to perfect and sustain the online system.

Stakeholder goodwill

Since inception, the ardhisasa system has enjoyed tremendous public goodwill, especially from progressive and well-meaning professionals. Obviously, a good functional online system will expedite professional work, and eliminate visits and queues in public offices. Nevertheless, the immense goodwill that came with the launch of ardhisasa has been gradually diminishing. Lawyers, surveyors, valuers, planners, real-estate agents and banks, have echoed their concerns. These have been consistent and near similar. However, while the Lands Ministry has done a perfect job in articulating the benefits and services offered through the system, it may not have been equally robust in responding to user feedback.

Political promises should align to policy and laws

We are into the mad season yet again. Politicians are on the beat seeking votes. Once on podiums, they rant, talk at each other and make all manner of promises. Those of us who have had opportunities to talk to audiences may not be entirely surprised. Audiences have a way of raising some speakers to a momentary ‘high’ when one could easily drift off. Unguarded speakers, especially politicians, can therefore easily make unwarranted and impractical promises.

In earlier contributions, I have shared highlights informing that having embedded solutions to its land question in the constitution and laws, Kenya moved on. We have moved from the problem-profiling phase of our history, onto designing and implementing appropriate programs in response to our documented challenges. This is good for Kenya since land sector programs, even where restorative, will be guided by a structured policy and legal framework. Political promises made outside this realm are therefore mere hype. Our politicians should familiarize with this status before making public promises.