Government put on spot over historical land injustices at NLC hearing

[Article source: The Standard, by: Robert Kiplagat]

Government agencies have been put on the spot over alleged grabbing of private land. This came as the National Land Commission (NLC) yesterday started hearings of historical land injustices in Narok and Bomet counties. Individuals, members of group ranches and minority group representatives narrated how they lost their birthright to unscrupulous Government officials who took their land without giving compensation, reducing them to squatters.

Tapnyobi Torgotit, a 107-year-old woman, told the committee led by Samuel Tororei how the Ministry of Agriculture displaced them from their 50-acre plot in Quarry village in Bomet town. “We lived in Quarry on PDP No BMT/336/97/10 from 1920 until 1992, when the then district commissioner using police evicted us on claims that we were living on Government land, which was then sub-divided and allocated to individuals,” said Ms Torgotit, whose husband died in 1969. She said after they were evicted, they were referred to as ‘Nubians’ yet they are from the Kipsigis community, adding that between 2008 and 2009, the Minsitry of Agriculture fenced off the land and cut down the trees.

Through her lawyer Geoffrey Kipng’etich, she said she had tried to lodge complaints in various Government departments to no avail. Dr Tororei and fellow commissioners Rose Musyoki, Clement Lenachuru and Emma Njogu listened to 32 cases from various parts of the South Rift and will be giving recommendations on the claimants’ complaints. Torgotit said she had buried her six children and her husband, and it was against her culture to live far from where her kin were buried. Tororei pledged that the NLC would investigate her matter and referred her to the next sitting, which will take place in Kericho County. “From the hearings, it is clear that the authorities abused their power by acquiring land from individuals for public utilities without following due legal process,” he said.