Karoney forms team on Rift Valley land question

Land secretary Farida Karoney has formed a team to look into Rift Valley land disputes in a fresh bid to resolve the historical conflicts.

The team will includes officials of the National Land Commission (NLC), local leaders and surveyors.

“Issues surrounding land ownership cannot be resolved by the Land ministry alone and that is why we have begun engaging the stakeholders including political leaders to ensure all conflicts are resolved,” Ms Karoney said in Nakuru town on Tuesday.

The move comes hardly eight months after the NLC published rules to guide investigations into historical injustices and opened the process to thousands of Kenyans with unresolved disputes.

Under the regulations, which coverthe period between June 15, 1895 and August 27, 2010, an individual can file a claim on property with the NLC.

The conflicts have in the past led to destruction of property and loss of lives after individuals, communities clashed over ownership.

The team is, however, likely to duplicate the work already done in the past by Commissions of Inquiry and taskforces whose recommendations continue to gather dust at the ministry’s shelves.

The ministry, she added, has in the meantime started the process of issuing tittle deeds to land allocated to the 2007/2008 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and settlement schemes across the country.

Most of the expansive parcels of land in the region that were allocated to IDPs have had persistent ownership wrangles that even threatened their demarcations.Some of the cases which involve double allocation of land have fueled a litany of court cases.