Land and Physical Planning Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney has assured the residents and leadership in Tana River County of the government’s commitment to fast-track the issuance of title deeds to the community owned lands.
Land CS said since the President Uhuru Kenyatta government came into power in 2013 the ministry of land has registered 5.1 million title deeds surpassing the 6 million title deeds registered during the reign of the three previous heads of states.
The CS inaugurated the first land registry in Hola, 58 years since Kenya attained her independence. She said the Tana River County still lags behind in comparison with other counties with less title deeds.
“We have 12 million title deeds in the country, In comparison to the rest of the country the documentation of land here is very low we want to work closely with you so that we fast-track the documentation,” CS Karoney.
CS Karoney advised Tana River residents to take care of their expansive land and not to subdivide it until it is no longer economically viable, but to instead grow high value crops with support from the county government.
She also allayed fears from county assembly leadership on their involvement, saying the Ministry of Land has embarked on an aggressive land reform journey, and has done community sensitization in all the 24 counties with community lands.
She added her ministry will work closely with the county leadership and all communities to implement the community land act of 2016.
Assembly leadership led by the deputy speaker Saddam Hussein had appealed to the CS and the county government of Tana River not to bypass the assembly and to also involve all the communities in land matters.
The deputy speaker had decried the snail’s pace at which the documentation of land takes in the county urging the government to speed up the process and issue title deeds to the Wayu community since they had started the registration process in 2019.
Nation Land Commissioner Tiya Galgalo said that NLC has received 725 claims from different communities in the country relating to historical land injustices 20 of the cases are from the Tana River County.
Tana River County Commissioner Mbogai Rioba urged the residents to make maximum use of the land registry to acquire title deeds.
By Sadik Hassan
