Eviction agony as two keys land Bills delayed

By Harold Ayodo

Kenya: Two key land Bills are gathering dust on government shelves even as the people they were supposed to help live in fear of possible illegal evictions.

Community Land Bill and Evictions and Resettlement Bill were expected to, among other things, stem unconstitutional evictions. The delay is causing frustrations among some communities, especially in the wake of major infrastructural projects. This is now threatening their security of tenure and exposing them to looming unconstitutional evictions.

Their main saviour would be the passing of the Community Land Bill and the Evictions and Resettlement Procedures Bill. For starters, the Community Land Bill gives customary land rights equal as other statutory rights and allows communities to administer their land.

It also makes it dificult for the elite, government officials and brokers to grab community land, which has been common since independence.

Evictions and Resettlement Procedures Bill, on the other hand, provides for procedures on evictions, protection, prevention and redress against eviction, even for illegal occupiers. It protects occupiers of land from unlawful and unprocedural forced evictions in line with Article 43 (1)(b) of the Constitution, which provides for the right to access to adequate housing.

As both bills continue to gather dust, recent directives issued by the National Land Commission (NLC) stopping allocation of community land or illegal evictions pending enactment of the two laws continue to fall on deaf years.

This has made players like Hakijamii – the economic and social rights centre – to call for immediate enactment of the two important bills.

According to Hakijamii, delay in passing of the Bills can partly be attributted to the in-fighting between the Land, Housing and Urban Development Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu and the NLC Chairman Muhammad Swazuri on juristidictional issues. Legal experts argue that the delay by the Lands Minister Charity Ngilu to submit the Bills for Cabinet approval is part of an effort to frutrate land reforms and a sure recipe for distater.

The taskforce that was mandated to write the two Bills completed its work in February but the minister is yet to offically receive them.

Ngilu owes Kenyans an explanation on why she appears to be more interested in issuing title deeds than addressing the underying problems facing land reforms in the country.

It is important to note that without community land and eviction laws, the government will continue issuing a barrage of notices to pave way for construction of mega projects.

Currently, communities are keeping their fingers crossed as the government rolls out mega infrastructure projects like the Sh2 trillion Lamu Port and South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset), which will transform Lamu, Isiolo and Lodwar into resort towns and special economic zones.

The project, also known as the second transport corridor, comprises the Lamu Port at Manda Bay, a railway line, highway, oil refinery, oil pipeline and airports at Isiolo, Lamu and Lodwar.

Thousands of families are also living in fear following the expiry of a countrywide eviction notice issued by the Kenya Railways Corporation. In the notice, the corporation directed families living within 30 metres of the railway line to leave within two weeks.

The notice came barely a week after a directive from Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau that structures built 15 to 30 metres from the railway line be demolished.

Many other families risk eviction following the anticipated construction of the controversial multi-billion shilling standard gauge railway line from Mombasa to Nairobi and Kisumu.

There are also ongoing evictions — unrelated to infrastructural developments — that have caused uproar.

The forceful eviction and destruction of property of the Sengwer from Embotut forest recently is among cases that require a law on community land and evictions.

— The writer is an advocate of the High Court