It is evident from the recent wave of demolitions of illegal structures that some public officers have not been doing their job.
The National Land Commission’s (NLC) decision to summon top state officers, who approved reckless reclamation of sea land at Kibarani in Mombasa, is no doubt a noble move that promotes accountability in the public service.
This is because approval of projects in disregard of crucial factors such as environmental impact or land ownership has become far too common and needs to stop. Often, it is the rightful owners of such irregularly acquired property that have had to deal with the consequences whenever the state resorts to measures such as demolition or repossession of grabbed public land.
Public officers who presided over such illegal approvals have continued to live freely, often leaving the taxpayers with the burden of litigation and enforcement of administrative action such as demolition of illegal structures. This is unacceptable because it takes two to tango. All parties involved in irregular developments must be made to pay for their deeds.
In any case the law is clear on what is expected of public officers as they exercise their mandates.
Article 232 (i) of the Constitution demands that public officers be accountable for their administrative actions and uphold transparency at all times. Article 5 of the Public Service Act, 2015 reinforces this by demanding that the officers observe the rule of law and exercise honesty and integrity.
Yet it is evident from the recent wave of demolitions of illegal structures that some public officers have not been doing their job. In most of the controversial cases, property owners have claimed that they were granted approvals to purchase and develop illegally acquired public land -- which is shocking because it points to incompetence or sheer indiscipline on the part of the public officers involved.
Our position is that given the extent to which this problem has spread countrywide, only a comprehensive audit of all illegally acquired and developed land to ascertain who was involved in their approval will settle the matter.
This must be accompanied by the determination to demonstrate that any officer found culpable of aiding the developers to side-step rules and procedures will be dealt with promptly.
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