By Gakuu Mathenge

Lands PS Dorothy Angote has urged MPs to support Sessional Paper on Draft National Land Policy tabled in Parliament by Lands Minister James Orengo on Wednesday.

Angote said land policies handed down to Africa by colonial powers are responsible for perpetual food insecurity. She said Africa spends $19 billion annually in food imports due to shortage.

"The fact that Africa spends this kind of money on food imports despite possession of vast tracks of arable land is evident policies we inherited from colonial powers have not served us well. They’re long over due for review," she said in interview with The Standard on Saturday.

Apart from proposing laws that promote food production, the sessional paper imposes a limit to land ownership by foreigners and proposes foreign interests to leaseholds to be limited to 99 years.

This aims to not only overturn the 999-year leases granted to settlers by colonial authorities, but also a treaty signed by founding President Jomo Kenyatta with the Sultan of Zanzibar, on the eve of independence, granting Arab settlers perpetual protection of their land interests at the Coast.

"The freehold titles to land in the Coast region… will at all times be recognised… I have the honour to propose that this letter and your reply in confirmation shall constitute an agreement between our two governments," the treaty dated October 5, 1963 says.

It is signed by Kenyatta and Zanzibar Prime Minister M Shamte, on behalf of His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar.

The guarantee constituted part of commitments Kenyatta administration undertook in exchange for the Ten Mile Coastal Strip, which was politically part of the Sultan’s territory.

The treaty has left successive governments saddled with vast swathes of land owned by foreigners and a big population of landless people at the Coast.

Angote said the proposed land policy is historic and the best gift to Kenyans. "It is the best document on land Kenya has ever produced. The search for a national land policy started in 1905, and it is only the first time we have managed to produce a draft policy since," she added.

The Cabinet adopted the draft national land policy in July, and if Parliament approves the sessional paper, it will unlock a raft of land reforms that include overhaul of existing land laws and enactment of new ones.