Kilifi north MP Owen Baya has called for proper audit of the more than 70,000 title deeds the ministry of lands plan to issue in Kilifi County soon.
The vocal lawmaker said once that happens, then it will be easy to weed out land cartels and grabbers who have preyed on Kilifi land for decades forcing the locals to live as squatters.
Mr Baya blamed a section of Kilifi leaders he said were the ones overseeing the stealing of land belonging to squatters in Takaungu, Kilifi County.
Speaking after issuing bursary cheques worth Sh7 million, Mr Baya said it will be hard to end the landlessness problem in Kilifi because some senior politicians from the region have teamed up with land grabbers to aid them in allocating big chunks of land in the region.
“There is a senior politician from Kilifi who has in fact joined those stealing the land and I can even tell him to his face that he has been aiding the people stealing the land from Kilifi.
Mr Baya said the politician has been aiding people from stealing the community land because he sits in the ministry and knows exactly where the lands are.
“I can simple tell the people South of Takaungu that your land is gone and the person whom we thought would take care of our land actually aided people to take away it away from us,” he added.
The legislator said he has evidence of his claims that thousands and thousands of acres of land have been given to people through proxies and also through a well calculated plan from the Kilifi County government.
“The government is planning to give out 70,000 title deeds in Kilifi but I can tell for free that only 20 per cent of the titles will go to genuine land owners in Kilifi but the rest, will go to well-connected people who have taken thousands and thousands of acres of land,” he said.
Mr Baya said carrying out the audit will be one way for the government to address the squatter problem.
“When the titles are brought to Kilifi, there must be audited so that we get to know who among the 70,000 are from Kilifi, how many of them are local entities, how many of them deserve to get titles.
I am asking this because only 20 per cent are genuine land owners and the rest are Kilifi politicians in cahoots with other guys from the ministry of lands who have taken huge chunks of land in the region and that one I can tell anytime,” said Mr Baya.
