Lands CS Jacob Kaimenyi formed a special committee to deal with land problems as the Jubilee administration is committed to addressing the disputes, Kilifi North MP Gideon Mung’aro has said.
“The special committee is the only hope for addressing the land issues in the region and this is one of the major commitment the government is doing to end the problem,” he said.
Speaking to the Star on the phone on Wednesday, Mung'aro said a team led by Nancy Wangari from the Ministry of Lands has toured the county to assess the situation.
There have been many land ownership disputes pitting locals against investors.
They include dispute over 230 acres in Bofa pitting British farmer Tony Stubbs and family against more than 400 locals from the Nayeni/Mibuyuni Squatters Association who claim it is their ancestral land.
At Ihaleni in Mavueni, an on-and-off invasion has been witnessed on the 6,000 acres of land. About 5,000 locals from the Ihaleni Community Land Association wants to take it from a private company.
At Kibarani, 4,000 residents, members of the Kibarani Ward Progressive Association, have several times invaded 350 acres belonging to Millennium Management.
The company took over the management of the Kilifi cashew nuts factory after its collapse in the early 1990s. Residents want to take over the land, a situation that has seen several invasion attempts on the land.
The three committees recently attended a meeting in Nairobi with senior land officials.
“After the meeting at the land office, a special committee was formed and was sent to assess the situation. The three issues will soon be addressed,” said Mung’aro.
Mung’aro on the other hand said the parliamentary Lands Committee has settled some land disputes.
“Out of the eight land disputes, which we were handling as a Parliament, three of them have been settled among them land owned by veteran politician John Keen in Kibarani ward, the Takaungu land dispute in Mnarani ward and the Kiwandani village land in Sokoni ward,” he said.