The National Land Commission (NLC) wants Parliament to fast-track the passage of a Bill that seeks to restore its legal powers to revoke title documents for illegally allocated or grabbed public land.
The commission told the National Assembly’s Committee on Public Investments Committee on Commercial and Energy Affairs that its legal powers to revoke title deeds for grabbed public land ended after the lapse of section 14 of the NLC Act, 2012, which gave it the mandate.
The NLC told the committee chaired by Pokot South MP, David Pkosing, that its mandate to cancel title documents for grabbed or illegally acquired public land ended in 2016.
Kabale Tache, the NLC chief executive officer, told MPs that the lapse of section 14 of the NLC Act, 2012, took away its power to review all grants and dispositions of public land to establish their propriety or legality.
Ms Tache made the revelations on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, at a session where the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) was hard-pressed to explain why it had failed to recover grabbed land that was meant for the expansion of Malindi Airport.
“While the commission can investigate land grabbing and illegal excavations, it lacks the authority to revoke illegal titles or enforce evictions,” Ms Tache said.
“The role of the NLC is limited to making recommendations, and the Chief Land Registrar holds the decisions on ownership.”
Ms Tache said it is awaiting the assent of the National Land Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2023, sponsored by Kilifi North MP Owen Baya, which seeks to empower the commission to reclaim grabbed land.
The Bill, which was passed by the National Assembly on March 13, 2025 and forwarded to the Senate for concurrence, seeks to amend the NLC Act to restore the power of the commission to address any complaints dealing with public land and provide redress where there are apparent cases of illegality in the disposition relating to public land.
The proposed law also seeks to allow the NLC to continue admitting and processing historical land injustices claims by extending provisions of section 15 of the Act, which also lapsed in 2016.
Mr Pkosing said the NLC has no legal jurisdiction to revoke grabbed or illegally acquired public land, given the lapse of the sections that empowered them to do so.
“You have raised a weighty constitutional and legal issue that you have no power to revoke illegal grants. You are saying the NLC is helpless due to a legal loophole,” Mr Pkosing said.
The committee grilled for the second time the KAA acting managing director, Nicholas Bodo, over the illegal acquisition of part of Malindi Airport, a key tourism destination.
Mr Pkosing demanded to know why KAA had allowed squatters, including a church and an oil company, to occupy parcels earmarked for the airport expansion.
The land in dispute measures 100.6 hectares, which was initially allocated to the National Oil Corporation but later occupied by the Baptist Church and an oil depot operated by Vivo Energy.
Mr Pkosing sought to know why the KAA had demolished the church erected on 2.23 acres and left the oil firm, which occupies 0.11 acres inside the airside of the airport.
“How did KAA include this land in its asset register if the title is held by someone else?” Mwangi Kiunjuri, the Laikipia East MP asked.
Mr Bodo said the entire parcel of land belongs to the KAA and relied on a 1996 title deed, which he failed to produce to prove ownership.
Ms Tache told MPs that the KAA had sought the commission’s intervention too late, well after the statutory period for challenging illegal allocations had lapsed.
“The KAA is lying to the people of Kenya by claiming ownership while the land is legally gone,” Mr Pkosing said.
“I direct that you table by close of business the 1996 title document showing you legally own the entire land.”
Mr Pkosing also directed Mr Bodo to table the concession agreement between the KAA and Vivo Energy and questioned the rationale behind the company not being evicted like the church.
“KAA is incapacitated. I am contemplating bringing here the Head of Public Service, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, the Principal Secretary for Transport, and you to dissect the problems facing this dying parastatal,” Mr Pkosing said.
“The Malindi Airport’s stagnating due to land disputes that has crippled tourism in the region,” he said.
“Malindi is a ghost town because the airport isn’t functioning optimally,” he said. “Without expansion, tourist visits will keep declining.”
