Former Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) for lands Gideon Mung’aro has urged the government to continue buying land from willing large landowners
This, according to Mung’aro, will settle squatters in Kilifi County and the entire Coast region in generally.
The move he said will bring to end the challenges that has bedeviled the land problem at the Coast.
Mr Mungaro who is currently the gubernatorial candidate for Kilifi County in an ODM ticket spoke when he and together with Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala issued title deeds to residents of Kisiki, Baricho and other parts of Magarini and Malindi sib counties.
“The government has been buying land for resettlement of squatters. In Kilifi, there are several parcels of land that were purchased and people resettled. I want to urge that this plan continues to enable many people own land,” he said.
There has been hue and cry on how the land issue at the Coast has been handled by the past regimes since independence.
But Mr Mungaro said the current efforts being done by President Uhuru Kenyatta s administration has brought alot of hope for the squatters.
He spoke even as the government warned professional squatters in Kilifi County and across the country that they will be arrested and prosecuted.
Speaking after issuing the titles at Bombi in Magarini, Mr Balala who distributed more than 14,000 title deeds to Magarini residents said that it had been noted that a section of beneficiaries of government issued title deeds were selling them and invading other parcels of land as squatters.
” We don’t want a situation where the government gives you a title deed and the next thing in your mind is to well the land to another person and then go to squat in another area. That vice should stop because we don’t want that as a government, are addressing the same and you are busy creating another problem,” he said.
Mr Balala added that the government has opened a database where information of all beneficiaries of the title deed program are recorded to make it easy to identify cheats and professional squatters.
He also said that the government has processed more than 6.5 million title deeds in ten years compared to 5 million from independence to 2013.
Mr. William Baya, a resident of Baricho expressed happiness after picking his title deed saying that he was now a free man.
The sentiments were echoed by Ms Immaculate Dama from Kisiki who said that there was now hope of ending the squatter problem in the area.
Kilifi County land coordinator James Kamau urged residents to store the documents well noting that many people were not taking care of their title deeds.
Kilifi County Commissioner Kutswa Olaka on his part cautioned against family problems arising from land since they had previously led to death especially of the elderly.
“We know that these documents although beneficial to many of the residents, they are also a recipe for chaos and family conflict emerging over land. Let it addressed to the full,” he said.
Former Magarini MP Harry Kombe stated that residents had the habit of selling their land immediately they got their title deeds and cited the Magarini settlement scheme where 50 percent of beneficiaries had already sold their land and remained landless.
“Don’t sell this land once you are given the titles. This is an important document and you must protect,” he said.
