Kilifi governor Amason Kingi has pointed an accusing finger at the Agriculture Development Corporation (ADC) for grabbing community land in Adu Kamale. – By Ramadhan Kambi.
According to the governor, ADC is claiming more than 230,000 hectares of land from where the community resides.
The governor said ADC disregarded all the mapped boundaries and with less regards that there are people living in those areas went ahead to expand its boundaries, encroached to community land, a move said has now caused a lot of tension in the region.
He said when the government was surveying the land in Adu Kamale that neighbours Galana-Kulalu, they were told that the land belonged to Agriculture Development Corporation (ADC).
“This shocked us because for many years, the community has been living there and both the county and national government put up social and public amenities like schools, health centres among other utilities,” said Governor Kingi.
Governor Kingi said the residents had all along known that to be a community land but when the matter of ADC claiming the land arose, we sent surveyors to that region to see where the boundaries were.
“From the report, it was evident that ADC had encroached on land that belongs to the community. That is why we had to stop the exercise until the issue is resolved,” he said.
That he said prompted him to have the meeting with the CS where they agreed to continue with the consultation that will have to rope in other sector players for a permanent solution.
“We have talked and agree with the CS that we shall meet again with other sector players in the lands to have a long-lasting solution. It is unfortunate that a person having lived all their lives in that land would be suddenly be landless. This is not possible,” said governor Kingi.
During the meeting, Mr Kingi showed the CS a map of the land and we told her that the matter was raising tension in the region, hence an urgent solution is needed.
“We even sent our county officials led by Lands Executive Maureen Mwangovya to talk to the communities that was not ease with the statement by the ADC.
The county government has started a program to survey land in a bid to make sure that residents get title deeds for their land.
The Governor said there has been incidence of people grabbing land from the locals and then process title deeds where they then begin evicting the locals.
“We need to find a long-lasting solution to this problem and we have talked with the CS and soon we shall make a good progress over the same,” he told journalists.
