Experts warn mining leases can fuel conflict as land Bill stalls

Politics and policy

Odenda Lumumba, national coordinator of the Kenya Land Alliance, says community members cannot claim compensation for land for lack of documents. File  

By KIARIE NJOROGE

In Summary

Parliament is charged with the duty of enacting legislation to protect the rights of the individual and community.

Land experts have warned that continued lease of community land to mining firms before Parliament crafts a legal framework could deepen conflict in resource-rich areas of the country.

Odenda Lumumba, the national coordinator of the Kenya Land Alliance, said the legal void has worked against community members who cannot claim compensation because they have no ownership documents.

“It is creating a conflict where the communities are being displaced,” he said.

The Community Land Bill is stuck in Parliament, which has a timeline of five years to pass it from August 2010 when the Constitution came into force. The law seeks to provide a legal framework for registration of community land under a collective name to be administered by representatives. The Constitution says all unregistered community land is held in trust by the county governments on behalf of the communities.

Parliament is charged with the duty of enacting legislation to protect the rights of the individual and community.

“Community land shall not be disposed of or otherwise used except in terms of legislation specifying the nature and extent of the rights of members of each community individually and collectively,” states the Constitution

The country is entering a period of mineral exploitation with oil, gas, rare earths, coal, iron and gold all discovered in many areas, some of them community land. Mr Lumumba said other projects like the Lamu transport corridor will traverse vast community lands making enactment of the Community Land Law urgent to guide compensation.

“If that land was privatised to them they would be getting fair, prompt and just compensation,” Mr Lumumba said. He made the comments in Nairobi yesterday as the National Land Commission (NLC) started to review allocation of 500,000 acres to 22 companies in Lamu County.

The commission put up a schedule of dates between August 21-28 when it will conduct hearings and later determine whether to revoke the titles. NLC is mandated to review all public land allocations to establish if they are legally sound and has in the recent past revoked titles to lands deemed to have been irregularly acquired.

“This process of review of grants and dispositions is something that the commission has been doing since we came into being,” said NLC deputy chairperson Abigail Mbagaya.