By George Omondi

Work on various statutes on land have been suspended to allow various interest groups to participate in the process, Ministry of Lands officials said even as experts demanded radical changes at the headquarters. Lands minister James Orengo said three Bills the National Land Commission Bill, the Land Bill and the Land Registration Bill â€" will only be presented to Attorney General after talks with all stakeholders.

This means the country is likely to go into the next General Election without addressing the emotive land question that inflames ethnic passions in various parts of the country. â€Å"While we acknowledge that land has been the source of most of the country's conflicts, resolving related issues will not be easy without the input of all stakeholders to ensure we come up with acceptable pieces of legislation,â€Â� Mr Orengo told a conference on constitutional transition organised by Swedish Embassy in Nairobi, Tuesday.

The new Constitution provides the government a time frame of between 18 months and five years from its date of promulgation last year to fix the country's perennial land problem. The three proposed laws seek to address the emotive issues surrounding acquisition and distribution of land in the country and resolve the cycle of perennial tension that has traditionally burst open in election years with heavy toll on human life and property.

In the past 47 years of self-rule that Kenya has been governed without a national land policy, endemic corruption affecting both private and public land has elevated access to land to a national pastime as successive political regimes have failed to address it. Yesterday, Mr Orengo vowed to go on with his controversial repossession of all the illegally acquired public land saying he had recourse in existing laws, which treat ill-gotten title deeds as null and void.

â€Å"Apart from setback in court rulings, we have also faced challenges in repossessing irregularly allocated public lands in Nairobi since most of them either belong to Kenya Railway or City Council of Nairobi whose officials are free to do what they please with land as long as internal procedures are followed,â€Â� said Mr Orengo. Land professionals have, however, faulted the minister's approach to fighting corruption in his ministry saying he has to begin by restructuring institutions that have presided over the rot in the past.

Vetting officials

Stakeholders such as Institution of Surveyors of Kenya and Kenya Land Alliance say reforms in the ministry must begin by vetting top Lands officials and reconstituting the offices for director of physical planning, director of survey and the Lands commissioner.

â€Å"It is an obvious contradiction that the same structures or people who created the mess are the same ones who are repossessing the irregularly allocated lands,â€Â� said Mwenda Makathimo, director of the Land Development and Governance Institute. The group wants the government to prioritise land reforms and tackle the political undercurrents, legal and economic aspects of it before the next General Election as â€Å"all the pillars of the country's Vision 2030 depended on itâ€Â�.

omondi@ke.nationmedia.com