Resource information
Irregular and Illegal allocation of land is a major component of the land question is in Kenya.
The land question is a major rhetoric as it is not one issue but a myriad of issues entrenched in
archaic, pre colonial administrative methods and systems which led to lack of transparency and
abuse of high held offices in the self interest of individuals as pertaining to land. The targets for
fulfilling such self interests were public land and land that could not be acknowledged by law for
the simple and erroneous fact that the law did not allow for the means of acknowledgment by
affording the custodians of such land the luxury of registration. Indeed the effects of such
systems were to be felt decades later and brought out in broad daylight by such painful
happenstance as the post election violence of 2007. Many stakeholders championed the land
reforms as the answer to the land question. The issues needed addressing and the national land
policy was birthed, intricately identifying and detailing the issues marring the then land regime
and recommending curative measures.
The Constitution of Kenya promulgated in 2010 embedded the core values of the land policy
giving the government the mandate to see to it that land in Kenya is managed in a manner that is
equitable, efficient, productive and sustainable. Different laws were therefore enacted and the
land regime equipped with the institutional capacity to see this through. The National Land
Commission was the ‘saviour’ institution. This study has a general objective of assessing the
effectiveness of the National Land Commission in addressing illegal/irregular land allocations in
Kenya. The specific objectives include establishing the extent to which the commission has
managed to deal with illegal/irregular land allocations four years since its inception and the
forms of such allocations while detailing the challenges it faces. The study also reviewed the
current laws relating to illegal/irregular land allocations. The research methodology involved the
use of qualitative and quantitative data with desktop research taking the bulk of the data
supplemented with interviews conducted on Ministry of Land officers from the relevant
departments that deal with allocation of land. The study found that there exists a Constitutional
and legislative framework that is ill-prepared to curb illegal and irregular land allocations; lack
of a critical mass of political goodwill and the obscure mandate of the National Land
Commission; and, the capacity of the National Land Commission to investigate historical land
injustices having been tied to Parliament’s legislative discretion and political whims.It therefore
recommended the establishment of a fund account for the National Land Commission as well as
a raft of Constitutional and legislative amendments, not only to reinforce National Land
Commission’s institutional capacity to address the problem, but also to expand its scope to cover
the management of community land. It also recommended speedy digitization of land records.
