Pass law and pay land rates

Higher Education Minister William Ruto has once again claimed the poor will be required to pay land rates, if the Proposed Constitution is adopted in the August 4 referendum.

He said the proposed set of laws demanded that local people must pay taxes for their houses and land, which he described as "draconian law" and cautioned Kenyans against voting for it.

"The local people are too poor to pay rates for their houses and land," he said adding that land crisis facing the Rift Valley and the Coast provinces must be dealt with care. He was addressing a rally at Mariakani in Mombasa, on Saturday.

Accompanied by MPs Wilfred Machage (Kuria) and Kiema Kilonzo (Mutitu), former MPs Lucas Maitha and Anania Mwaboza, and two Mombasa lawyers, Ruto said the land chapter in the draft laws would complicate the land crisis.

Ruto said both the ‘No’ and the ‘Yes’ camps were aware of the faulty clauses in the draft but the difference was in the method to resolve them and when.

While the ‘No’ team has demanded the amendment of the constitution before the referendum, the ‘Yes’ team wants amendments after passing the law. He said the opponents were under pressure from the US and other foreign powers to have a new constitution.

Ruto said the Coast residents rejected the Wako Draft in 2005 due to absence of federalism and wondered how the ‘Yes’ team was trying to bring counties as majimbo (federalism).

He said the Kenya National Land Commission, which would sit in Nairobi was going to complicate matters for the landless.

"We want a team to sit in the local village and handle the land crises that face many people and not the commission," he said.

Machage said his suspension from the Government has given him more time to campaign against the ‘faulty’ draft law.

He introduced another controversy; that the proposed laws have no provisions on the boundaries of Kenya as a country.

"In the Proposed Constitution, we do not have the boundary of Kenya and should not be accepted," he said.

Lawyers Yusuf Abubakar and William Kenga said there would be six counties in the Coast Province and they would be given only Sh12 billion out of the more than Sh200 billion set for the Government per year.

"The counties are not going to help us. We wanted majimbo to manage our affairs and counties are not the better option," Yusuf said.