The Ministry of Lands has embarked on an exercise to eradicate land fraud and reclaim grabbed public land in Ruiru constituency, Kiambu County.
This is after the launch of a month-long land clinic meant to educate residents, land owners, sellers and buyers on land transaction processes.
The Lands Cabinet Secretary (CS), Faridah Karoney said providing land-related information to members of the public would eradicate high levels of land fraud and weed out brokers in the area.
Karoney said through the ongoing digitization of land records, all grabbed public land would be identified and recovered.
She said the digitization would ensure no records were lost or stolen and that this would further streamline the titling process.
“Once all land records are online, crooks will fear faking title deeds. This will ensure cases of missing files and one piece of land having several title deeds are addressed. People will be able to access services online from the comfort of their homes,” she said.
The CS called on chiefs and their assistants to partner with land registries to ensure that brokers do not grab land from the helpless.
She added that from October, all Ministry staffers would wear badges and displaying service numbers so that wananchi do not fall prey to crooks who often pose as Ministry employees.
Karoney appealed to those with pending land cases to withdraw them and enable alternative dispute resolution process to take precedence in resolving land maters.
“Land related cases contribute to more than half of the backlog of court cases. This should not be the case as people should consider solving cases out of court. Chiefs and their assistants and county government officials should play a key role in helping settle disputes out of court,” she said.
The Ruiru MP, Simon King’ara asked the ministry to intervene and resolve leadership wrangles pitting the management of Githunguri Constituency Ranching Company in Ruiru which has two factions.
The MP said shareholders of the land buying company had been thrown into confusion by the existence of parallel set of directors.
By Karen Koech/ Muoki Charles
