Kajiado county land minister Hamilton Parseina is irked by top officials of two group ranches in Loitokitok for failing to seek consent to subdivide their land.
Following that disagreement, Parseina has urged the police in Loitokitok to investigate the conduct of Kuku “A” and Kuku “B” group ranch chairmen, Johana ole Nkunja and Solomon ole Kahenja.
Parseina in a presser in Kajiado on Saturday accused the two of bypassing the county government and seeking consent from Ardhi House in Nairobi to subdivide their group ranch to individual members.
“This is a breach of the law because our land office in Kajiado is the one that is supposed to consent to that. Some top land officials in Nairobi have micromanaged land resources in Kajiado for a long time,” said a physically angry Parseina.
He accused the two Kuku group ranch top officials of fraudulently procuring a consent letter from Nairobi to subdivide their land in 2018.
Parseina also accused unnamed top land officials of processing land titles for group ranch members before their lands are surveyed. He refused to name anyone, adding that “they know themselves.”
The county land minister had on Friday last week said he had successfully stopped the two group ranch chairmen from issuing out land titles to their members.
But on Sunday, Kahenja and Nkunja said they issued out land titles to their members as scheduled on Friday.
Kahenja and Nkunja told the Star in a telephone interview they did what is right for their members, who have been demanding for demarcation of their land in the last five tears.
“No police officer from Loitokitok has come to investigate us. This is pure politics and Parseina should have just told you the truth. Since governor Joseph Lenku was elected in 2017, we have been trying to seek consent from them for the subdivision of our land but they refused,” claimed Kahenja.
Nkunja claimed that the governor is bitter with their group ranch members because they have refused to support his reelection in the August 9 general election, a claim Parseina objected.
The Kuku “A” group ranch chairman claimed their last attempt to seek the county government's consent last year took them 12 months of waiting.
“We wrote several letters to the Kajiado land registry that was copied to Lenku and the county lands minister, but we received no feedback” Nkunja claimed.
Parseina also accused the group ranch officials of allegedly obtaining land titles from Nairobi before the actual survey takes off on the ground.
“This has never happened anywhere on earth. This is illegal and those officials should be arrested and charged,” said Parseina.
Kahenja dared Parseina to use the police to arrest them, adding that their political difference with the governor should not be connected to the livelihoods of their members.
The two chairmen said the subdivision of their group ranches was completed early in the year and each member has been shown their parcels of land.
“Some have even received their titles. There is nothing illegal in that. They refused to work with us and we decided to seek help from above. They are now bitter because they missed eating something,” claimed Kahenja.
There are seven group ranches in the Kajiado South sub-county.
Kimana/Tikondo, Olgulului/Olalarrashi, Kuku “A”, Kuku “B”. Imbirrikani, Eselenkei and Rombo - which have all been subdivided.
According to former Kajiado deputy governor, Paul Ntiati, the land tenure reform programme implemented in Kajiado started in 1961 with the demarcation of commercial ranches and group ranches.
“Its objective was to set the stage for the development of what was assessed to be the best sustainable production system in the semi-arid and arid rangelands of Kenya and Kajiado in particular,” said Ntiati.
Ntiati, a former researcher at African Wildlife Foundation, said that in the last 44 years there has been considerable tension in the group ranches over the security of land tenure, especially for young people.
“This has created a demand for subdivision, a process that has now begun in many of the group ranches,” Ntiati said.
These include, he said, the Maasai pastoral system and the wildlife that depend on the availability of large landscapes that allow both livestock and wildlife to access resources that are widely distributed in both time and space.
The former deputy governor said land tenure changes in Kajiado and Loitokitok in particular, have been mostly externally driven, adding that they have undermined the value of traditional natural resource management.
Ntiati said a group ranch can be dissolved upon a written application to the registrar signed by a majority of the group representatives under a resolution passed by 60 per cent of the members present in person at a special general meeting convened for that purpose.
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