The National Lands Commission (NLC) will issue a total of 22,000 title deeds to the people in Kisumu to curb issues of land disputes.
Speaking in Kisumu when he toured Kisumu County lands office on Friday, the commission’s chairman Mohammed Swazuri also gave a notice to land grabbers to surrender the property.
Swazuri said they would visit the county in two weeks to demolish the illegal structures or buildings constructed on public lands and reposes the parcels. He said those who have encroached public land particularly public schools will be evicted and the lands given back to the schools.
Swazuri said their main reason for visiting the land registry was to meet their staffs and lay a strategy on a program of declaration of a jurisdiction within the county.
“Our mission is to establish land adjudication section in Kisumu and visit areas that have had land disputes in the area such as Wawidhi and Nyamthoe,” he said.
Swazuri however stated that commission’s directors have completed drafting the reviewed land policy. “Our directors have been in Kisumu working on the draft policy and yesterday I was in parliament and promised them that the draft policy will be presented to them this week,” he said.
He said the draft will be presented even to other stakeholders to give their input before it is again presented to parliament to make it a law. Swazuri said the national land policy was enacted in 2009 before the new constitution was promulgated and there is need to harmonize the policy and the constitution.
“The two documents must be harmonized for a smooth service delivery to the people of Kenya,” he said.
The chairman said the land policy has been in existence for five years and the commission knows areas of conflicts and those of concurrences.
Swazuri said the policy will be reviewed time and again to conform to the demands of the people of Kenya.
“For over five years, the commission has been working with this land policy and so we know every corner of this policy and the public must know that the policy was not cast on a stone but remains dynamic for review,” he said.