The government has embarked on the process of identifying idle lands in the Coast with the view of repossessing them, President William Ruto has said.
Ruto said the government is currently planning how it will buy the farms to resettle landless locals on them.
“Already, I have kick-started the process. We are identifying the owners, who do not live here so that we can regularise the process,” he stated.
Ruto promised to work hand-in-hand with the local leadership to “ensure no Kenyan lives as a squatter in their own country”.
“I know so many people in Mtwapa who are living on lands they do not own. Leave that work to me. I will straighten everything and people will live on their own lands,” he added.
Ruto made the remarks during the ground-breaking ceremony of Mtwapa-Kwa Kadgengo- Kilifi Road on Saturday.
With him were Cabinet Secretaries Aisha Jumwa (Public Service, Gender and Affirmative Action), Kipchumba Murkomen (Roads, Transport and Public Works) and Salim Mvurya (Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs) and governors Gideon Mung’aro (Kilifi) and Abdulswamad Shariff Nassir (Mombasa).
Absentee owners are bound to lose their land at the Coast following the move by the government.
Once the government takes over the land, it will hand it over to local communities, many of who have been paying rent to the landlords believed to be living in the Persian Gulf countries.
The issue of absentee landlords takes centre-stage whenever historical land injustices at the Coast are mentioned.
In 2015, National Land Commission ordered absentee landlords to register and prove ownership of the huge swathes of land they own in Coast where landlessness and the squatter problem is most acute in Kenya.
Most failed to show up and the order was extended but still not honoured.
Most of the landlords inherited land from their ancestors or fathers who were allocated land after the 1908 Land Ordinance Act.
Most are not known and live abroad especially in the Middle East and Europe and the rents on their properties are collected by agents.
