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| NLC Chairman Mohamed Swazuri |
| The activists hold that the state of affairs in NLC is distressing, and accuse the commissioners of perpetrating and entrenching corruption in office rather than meeting the public’s desire for professional management of land matters in the country. |
The National Land Commission, whose top officials are facing corruption charges, has lost the confidence of the main civil society actors in the lands sector, who are now demanding their resignation from office.
The coalition, which is led by the Kenya Land Alliance and Kenya Human Rights Commission, says NLC chairman Mohamed Swazuri and his colleagues have betrayed the trust that Kenyans put in them and should therefore resign their positions. Not only the commissioners who have been prosecuted should resign but all, since there is sufficient evidence of their corruption, the Land Sector Non-State Actors coalition has said.
The activists hold that the state of affairs in NLC is distressing, and accuse the commissioners of perpetrating and entrenching corruption in office rather than meeting the public’s desire for professional management of land matters in the country.
“As the clock etches away from the thirty-day ultimatum we gave you, we continue to receive evidence, electronic and otherwise, implicating you in corrupt practices while in office. You must immediately tender your resignation from the NLC,” they said in a letter dated 23 August. They now want NLC officials to meet them at the commission’s secretariat on 4 September where they will press for their resignation, using the evidence of NLC corruption.
“The commission is now in a crisis. Further, the schisms exposed by the various complaints from the public and evidence of malpractice coupled with internal wrangles within the Commission, will not be healed by your continued stay in office,” the coalition said in the statement copied to the Clerk of the National Assembly and Parliament’s Committee on Lands.
The coalition has been the primary anchor of the Commission’s work outside government, and its members include human rights agencies and individuals with long histories fighting for land reform in Kenya. “We in the civil society provided all the support that was within our capability and reason to ensure that the wishes of Kenyans enshrined in the Constitution would be actualised by the men and women chosen from among the many who had wished to serve as commissioners at the NLC, but who, because of limited space and resources, were politely turned down.
“When we sensed some hesitation and impediment being put in the way of institutionalisation of the commission, we spared no effort and time in coming to your support. However, as the years ebbed by, it became clear that you did not live to the ideals of the constitution, and the objectives for which the commission was established in the first place.”
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