Judge roots for law on private land sizes

Kenya: Supreme Court Judge Njoki Ndung’u has called on Parliament to fast-track the passage of a law that fixes the minimum and maximum acreage of ownership of private land.

Speaking recently in honour of the late Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, Ms Ndung’u said the legislation is critical to protecting the country from ongoing subdivision of private land into uneconomical units and hampering economic production.

The judge was a member of the Committee of Experts that prepared and harmonised the draft Constitution that Kenyans eventually passed.

She noted that section 68 of the Constitution places the mandate on Parliament to prescribe minimum and maximum land holding acreages of private land. “We need a law to give effect to that important clause in the Constitution. I appeal to legislators to play their part in passing this law,” she said.

Land expert Odenda Lumumba told The Standard yesterday that a technical committee was to be set up by the Ministry of Lands by 2012 to determine the economic viability of minimum and maximum land sizes across the country. The committee was to work out the different land sizes in different parts of the country depending on ecological zone and economic potential.

The findings of the committee were to be subjected to public comments and thereafter debated and if deemed fit, adopted by Parliament. Rules prescribing the minimum and maximum acreages, based solely on the report adopted by Parliament would then be published by the Cabinet Secretary in charge of matters related to land.

Lumumba appealed to the ministry to take the matter seriously. “I appeal to the ministry to prioritise this matter in line with the requirements of the Constitution. We cannot afford to take this issue lightly,” he said.

 FOOD SECURITY

A research study conducted in 26 counties revealed the ongoing sub-division of agricultural land as among the major threats to food security.

The study by the Catholic Churches’ Jesuit Hakimani Centre (JHC) showed rich agricultural land in many parts of the country is being subdivided into unproductive units as siblings insist that their inherited land must be subdivided between them.

JHC Director and Lead Researcher in the study Elias Mokua recommended that Kenyans should gradually free up arable land through a policy of reversing subdivision by encouraging use of storied buildings or having clustered settlements in the face of increasing population.

Dr Mokua also called for communities to adopt the policy of burying their dead relatives in communal cemeteries rather than in family homesteads.

“Currently, the challenge is the culture of inheriting and subdividing the land among siblings. This has made land too small for significant production. In addition, huge amounts of rich agricultural land are being turned into real estate,” he said at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa.