Machakos County Assembly should effectively exercise its legislative role to protect residents and their property, says Chama Cha Uzalendo leader Wavinya Ndeti.
Wavinya said the MCA’s should be proactive to speedily pass laws which will ensure locals are not unnecessarily evicted from their ancestral land for whatever reasons.
She spoke at a prayers meeting in Kayole Market, Masinga sub-county on Wednesday.
Wavinya said there were increasingly high cases of land disputes across the county which needed to be urgently addressed.
She said the assembly has a constitutional mandate to give direction to the Lands Ministry and National Land Commission by passing legislations that offer solutions to the disputes.
Wavinya said issues of squatters should be a thing of the past.
She said there were many squatters in the county despite the fact that the region is their ancestral land.
Wavinya cautioned the MCA’s against ignoring interests of their needy electorates by going to bed with leadership of the county government instead of fighting for their rights.
He said the leaders should exercise their oversight role to the county’s administration to ensure sanity and proper use of public resources.
“As Ukambani leaders, we cannot let those in power do what they want. We must work for the people to help them get their rights,” said Wavinya.
Wavinya said both the national and Machakos governments should protect squatters from Murifarm in Masinga from being evicted by Agricultural Finance Corporation.
She said it is unfair for the locals including elderly men and women of 90 years to be forcibly evicted from the land they have known to be their only home for ages.
Wavinya questioned why Governor Alfred Mutua was silent on the squatters’ evictions instead of helping them get their title deeds from the state.
She said the Machakos assembly should push the county government to pay off the Agricultural Finance Corporation’s loan so that Murifarm squatters be resettled on the 2,066 acres of land under dispute.
“We need peace in this region, the aged should die only after holding their title deeds,” said Wavinya.
Wavinya called on President Uhuru Kenyatta’s intervention to prevent the squatters from being forcibly evicted by the corporation.