Kisumu enacts new land adjudication laws

Kisumu City Manager Abala Wanga speaking during the handing over of a public land to the county government at Obunga in Kisumu County on February 4th 2021. (Collins Oduor, Standard)

Kisumu County has now legislated fresh laws allowing for regularisation of land ownership and development to curb illegal allotment and transactions.

This follows the enactment of the Kisumu County Regularisation of Land Ownership and Development Act, 2020.

The new law bars unauthorised development made on any public land from being formalised.

According to George Olwal, the Planning, Industrialisation and ICT chairperson, the Act aims to ensure sanity in land tenure and adjudication system in Kisumu.

The law will also guide the process of identifying idle land and its management.

“Developments shall be eligible for regularisation under this Act from the date of commencement and shall lapse within 12 months,” explained Mr Olwal.

The Act also says a County Executive Committee member may, with approval of the governor, extend the regularisation period.

The power to extend the regularisation period shall not be extended for an aggregate period of more than six months, but maybe exercised more than once.

Unauthorised development

The Act further states that an executive committee member may serve notice to the owner of an unauthorised development within a period of six months from the commencement of the Act.

On receiving the notice served, the owner shall comply and furnish the relevant particulars and documents as specified in the notice.

But according to Kisumu Lands Executive Dickson Obungu, unauthorised development shall not be regularised under the new Act.

“Unauthorised land subdivision below the acceptable size as per the zoning standards of that particular area within the county will not be considered,” he said

This Act comes amid rising cases of illegal land allocation. Just last week, a Commissioner of Oaths and Arbitration wrote a letter to the Kisumu City authorities seeking to bar a private citizen from developing a piece of land claimed to be owned by the community.

The commissioner, acting on behalf of the Kanyamedha clan, claims the land was donated in public trust by Konyango and Kowuor sub-clans in the 1930s for the building of Pundo/Kombedu open-air market.

Currently there is an ongoing crackdown and land reclamation programme being undertaken by the city management.