Assignment of Functions (Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development) Notice, 2026

Administration of ten Acts dealing with land passes to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, along with any functions conferred on that Minister by any Act except where they have been assigned to someone else.

The Acts are the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority Act, Alienated Land (Information) Act, Communal Land Act, Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act, Land Acquisition Act, Land Commission Act, Land Occupation Conditions Act, Land Survey Act, Land Surveyors Act and the Land Tenure (Repeal) Act, 1979.

The practical consequence is procedural rather than substantive: no land law changes, but applications, approvals and correspondence under these Acts are now addressed to this Ministry. The 2023 notice assigning them to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Development is repealed, reflecting the renamed portfolio.

Two things a reader should be aware of. The schedule lists the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority Act as "jointly administered with the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development" — the same Minister the Act is being assigned to, which appears to be a drafting error and leaves the joint administrator unidentified.

Second, a second notice with an identical title and the same gazette date of 4 June 2026 assigns a different and larger schedule of Acts to the same Minister, and also repeals the 2023 notice. The two instruments do not refer to each other, so it is not clear whether they are meant to be read together as one combined assignment or whether the later one supersedes the earlier.