Some indigenous community landowners from 13 counties have filed a petition in Parliament calling for the immediate registration and subsequent issuance of title deeds for their land.
Under their umbrella body Community Land Owners Alliance (CLOAK), the minority groups from Rift Valley, northern and the coastal region marched to Parliament to deliver the petition, signed by over 1,500 people, to compel the National Assembly to accelerate the registration process.
The 2016 enactment of the Community Land Act transitioned group ranches to community land, allowing communities to own land and hold title deeds legally.
Sufficient resources
“Since the promulgation of the constitution in 2010, only a handful of community lands have been registered and issued title deeds. Out of 600 community lands, only 50 have been registered, and only one of these is a former group ranch,” says Hussein Godana, Tana River CLOAK representative.
The have appealed for allocation of sufficient resources to facilitate land registration and emphasised the need for public awareness campaigns. The Community Land Act of 2016 provides for the recognition, protection, and registration of community land.
However, the petitioners say that the process of registration has been fraught with delays and challenges. This has fuelled land grabbing, resource-based conflict and exploitative compensation in cases of compulsory land acquisition, the lobby group says.
According to government records an estimated 3.5 million people are unable to register their communal lands covering roughly 150,000 square miles or 67 per cent of Kenya’s landmass. The constitution mandates county governments to act as trustees for all unregistered community land.
