New policy lets Maasai women own land

Kajiado, Kenya: Maasai women can now own land once a proposed land policy is passed into law by the county assembly.

Speaker Johnson Osoi yesterday said the policy has already been processed and will be signed into law in two weeks time.

“We have agreed that women should now inherit land and acquire title deeds, which is in line with our Constitution,” he said.

The speaker said there should be no gender discrimination hence the need to make a policy that allows registration of land for both men and women.

“We know this will not go down well with our male counterparts, but we have to follow the law which now allows women to acquire land contrary to our traditions,” he said.

Speaking at a Machakos hotel during a consultative forum on the newly developed land policy, Mr Osoi said a land control board should also be reconstituted. “This process of land subdivision has been marred by illegal alienation, acquisition and sale of individual and public land, extortion, forceful relocation and disinheritance,” he said.

Land Executive Ali Letura, who also attended the forum, said the county government will spend more than Sh70 million to digitise its land registry.

The executive said once a proposed policy is passed into law, the current registry would be brought up to date.

NUMEROUS ILLS

“We are planning to set up a one of a kind, state of the art geographic information system lab that will be used in monitoring ecosystems, natural resource management and to address various environmental issues,” he said.

The county government recently stopped all land transactions indefinitely after the assembly suspended all land boards over an alleged increase in fraud cases.

The forum, organised by Mainyoto Pastoralists Integrated Development Organisation, also addressed some of the critical problems affecting the county’s land sector.

Mr Letura highlighted some of these as: Allocation and grabbing of public land, malpractice by land control boards, encroachment on road reserves, haphazard development, poor management of land records, double allocations and issuance of title deeds without green cards.

He promised that the proposed land policy would help restore sanity to the county.

“This malpractice, besides being illegal, has a profound, long lasting and disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups within our community such as the poor, women, widows, orphans and persons with disabilities,” he said.