Del Monte land dispute need not have dragged on for years

By MAGESHA NGWIRI

Land has always been a very emotive issue in this country and its ownership is regarded as a primary indicator of wealth among many communities.

No matter how indigent you are in other respects, if you have proprietary rights over a piece of land, you are considered rich, especially if you use it to create wealth by farming it or as collateral.

That is why land alienation was one of the main reasons for the protracted struggle for independence by Africans who were pushed out by settlers through wile, guile or brutal force.

Unfortunately, those who fought for land benefited the least, and there is lingering resentment among their descendants on this count. So it would fair to say that they have a justifiable case for restitution. Seeking justice where a wrong has been committed is a human right.

However, targeting the wrong people is, in itself, a form of abuse of those rights. In other words, our forefathers were indeed, robbed of their land, but those who legally acquired it after Independence should not be made to pay for the injustice.

In my view, the issue is simple: A great injustice was perpetrated against poor Kenyans during the colonial times when their best land was alienated by settlers.

After Independence, they naively expected that it would be returned to them, but Kenyans with means bought the huge tracts, further disinheriting the poor and turning some of them into squatters.

SOLE MANDATE

That is capitalism for you – an unjust and predatory economic and political system in which a country’s resources are controlled by a few for private gain.

Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta took the unusual step of intervening in a protracted land dispute pitting one of the most profitable agribusiness multinationals in Kenya, Del Monte Kenya Ltd, and the Murang’a County government as well as a group of self-described “squatters”– the Kandara Residents Association – over thousands of hectares it farms in the former Central Province.

He told the Ministry of Lands to solve the dispute by the end of this month, which will, of course, take some doing considering the conflict has raged for the last 10 years.

According to Lands Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri, the ministry intends to do just that – survey the land, demarcate it, arbitrate on the matter, and finally renew the lease which the firm has held for 74 years.

It turns out the national government has the sole mandate to renew leases through the National Lands Commission, and so it is not clear where the county government or the Kandara outfit come in.

A number of court judgments have made it clear the association cannot force Del Monte to cede part of its land merely because of past injustices. Murang’a Governor Mwangi Wa Iria also seems to have toned down his sustained demand that the company cede 3,000 acres, insisting that the land must be on the Thika-Kabati Road.

LANDLESS LOCALS

That part of the demand seems a little extreme considering the multinational has already invested heavily in infrastructure on that section.

This is not to say the county government does not have a point when it seeks land for the poor of Murang’a. Nor does it mean that the Kandara association is wrong. It is a fact that thousands of landless locals are squeezed in small villages around the big pineapple plantation and they can only salivate at the prospect of owning chunks of it.

The only problem is that once the land is ceded, they have no way to guarantee that it will ever revert to them. It might just end up in the hands of local tycoons, a precedent already set by the fate of huge coffee plantations in the neighbouring Kiambu County.

The multinational, now officially known as Cirio Del Monte Kenya Ltd, specialises in growing, canning and exporting pineapple products. It is said to employ 6,500 workers who support 28,000 dependants. According to Thika MP Patrick Wainaina, himself a prominent nut producer, were the company to close down, Kenya would lose Sh10 billion in foreign exchange annually, and Thika would turn into a ghost town.

UTTERLY RUINOUS EFFECT

There is probably some exaggeration here, but at this point, it will certainly be utter folly to push out such an outfit. Del Monte would not be the first major employer to divest from the country in recent times with utterly ruinous effect.

On the other hand, those asking for a share of the land are not necessarily wrong; what is obscene is to sit on idle land at a time when too many people do not have any, which is why it should not have taken the government so long to act on the stalemate.

 Indeed, it should not have taken the intervention of American Ambassador Kyle McCarter to have the lease renewed (albeit with a Sh3 billion hospital thrown in as a sweetener). If you remove the element of greed, the lease should be extended so long as the interests of the local community are looked after. That way, everyone benefits.

Mr Ngwiri is a consultant editor; [email protected]