Orengo: Return land or go to jail
By Willis Oketch

Lands Minister James Orengo, has asked land grabbers to surrender public plots or risk prosecution.

Orengo, who was addressing Lamu residents, said grabbers of public land would not be spared when he implements the Ndung’u Land Commission Report.

“Some of these people have grabbed hospital land, school plots, toilets and other public utility land which must revert to the Government,” he said.

The residents cheered the minister when he said he would not spare even MPs, if they had grabbed public land.

“I do not care whether one is an MP or a minister, because the law does not know that,” he said.

Orengo assured residents that the squatter problem in Lamu would be resolved once the National Land Policy was in place.

He said that anyone who had been allocated or grabbed water catchment land would face legal action.

Orengo also said the sale of land in settlement schemes would be banned.

“If you have been allocated land in any settlement scheme, you will not sell it until after 20 years,” said Orengo.

Discrimination

Lamu Council of Elders Chairman Hussein Soud said when the Lake Kenyatta Settlement Scheme was established, 18,000 people from rural areas were settled, disregarding the residents.

Soud said that during the allocation of plots for religious groups, 150 were given to churches, while the mosque got only one.

The elders accused a former Coast PC of grabbing Manda Island in the pretext it was to be used as an airbase. They demanded that the land revert to families evicted from the island.

The council complained that the Commissioner of Lands had been giving out water catchment areas at Kipungani, Matondoni and Shela.

Courtesy of:http://www.eastandard.net/news/InsidePage.php?id=1143991151&cid=159&