Act fast, Muhammad Swazuri tells Land boards

NAIROBI: Protracted court proceedings have compounded land problems in the country, National Land Commission (NLC) Chairman Muhammad Swazuri has said.

 

He said some of the land disputes began during the colonial era and have not been concluded.

Mr Swazuri said many people had been rendered landless through historical injustices, after their ancestral land was illegally allocated to private developers.

He said the ewly-established county Land Management Boards should speedily resolve some of the disputes.

The NLC chairman was speaking when he addressed residents of Kilifi County after the swearing-in of eight members of the county land management board. The ceremony was presided over by Malindi High Court Resident Judge Said Chitembwe and witnessed by Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi.

The eight members later elected Amos Dado Galole as the board chairman at the ceremony held in the governor's office.

"The backlog of land dispute cases being filed in the area courts are set to reduce drastically as the members of the Kilifi County lands management board will be touring all parts of the county to listen and resolve the disputes," said Swazuri.

He, however, cautioned the board members against siding with land grabbers to deny the locals their land rights.

He told the board members to discharge their duties guided by the law and cautioned them against being involved in corruption.

 

"As the members of the Kilifi County Land Management Board, you have a heavy task ahead to listen and solve land disputes facing different people, including the rich, the poor and private companies. And for you to succeed in this work, you need to avoid being corrupt," Swazuri told the members.

Mr Kingi said county residents had hopes of getting a fair hearing of their land disputes.

Kingi said Kilifi people had been rendered squatters on their own ancestral land, which was wrongly allocated to private developers during the colonial era.

He said the Land board would easily address the land problems in the county if it discharges its duties freely and fairly.

Kingi was optimistic the colonial-era mistakes would be addressed through proper implementation of the new Constitution.

He expressed concerns that many Land commissions had been appointed to investigate irregular land allocations in Kilifi County and Coast region, but their reports had not been made public.