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Law not enough to unravel Kenya land disputes

Separately from that survey, Kenyatta has tasked the ministry for land, housing and urban planning with carrying out a comprehensive audit to identify and define what is publicly-owned land.

The NLC has launched a legal challenge, arguing that the ministry should not be re-allocating land since the land commission is responsible for managing all public land on behalf of the national and county governments as well as for investigating any irregularities in the acquisition of public land.

As well as carrying out its own enquiry into the Lamu land issue, the NLC is seeking advice from the Supreme Court on how its formal mandate should be interpreted.

In a separate petition before the High Court, the commission is claiming that minister Ngilu has interfered in matters that properly lie within its remit.

Justin Willis, an expert on East Africa at Durham University, notes that a sense of injustice over land ownership is shared by socioeconomic groups from powerful elite factions to large sections of the electorate. That raises questions about whether the political appetite to address them exists.

“Untangling Kenya’s land problems is going to be, on some levels, politically problematic and unpopular, not only because it may involve taking away the land of big powerful people, but also because lots of ordinary people will find that this situation doesn’t work out to their advantage,” Willis said.

Land Commission slow to get going

Some argue that signs of a true commitment to resolve these complex problems are not yet in evidence.

Lumumba pointed out that after the constitution came into force in 2010, “a lot of time was wasted” in setting up the NLC. The previous president also took a long time before giving it the green light, even after the selected commissioners had undergone a vetting process.

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Since the NLC came into being in early 2013, it has lacked capacity and funding from central government and still does not receive anything close to its annual budget.

According to its deputy chair, Abigail Mukolwe, the commission received only Sh1.6 billion ($18,000) from the government for the financial year 2014-15, despite requesting seven billion shillings. She added that this was still an improvement on last year’s funding.

Lumumba says some of the funding the NLC bid for has been diverted to the lands ministry which has been carrying out some of the work assigned to the commission. He urged the government to fund the NLC fully.

“The principle of the constitution, the principle of the new dispensation needs to be enhanced and appreciated by all the players, particularly the players in the government of the day who basically are charged to oversee the national budget,” Lumumba said. “We need the land [reform] sector to work as an oiled machine. Right now, what we have is a cog in the system. The machine is not running.”

Political battles cloud real issues

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