The European Union and the Food and Agriculture Organization have spent Sh1.2 billion to support the Land ministry's digitisation of services and records.
The Kiambu land registry on Friday became a beneficiary after receiving a container and land survey equipment worth over Sh1 million.
Ministry of Lands and Physical planning secretary for administration Anne Ngetich said the equipment will boost the digitisation agenda and efforts towards decentralisation.
"Decentralisation of land administration services has been extended to six counties in the last two weeks. We intend to bring the services to the people. As a ministry we are committed to enhancing access to land administration services," Ngetich said. She spoke during the official handover of the equipment donated by FAO at the Kiambu lands registry.
Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney, in a speech read on her behalf by Ngetich, said the ministry's strategic directions are focused on four key pillars which include digitisation, national titling, policy institutional and legal framework reforms and decentralisation.
The full implementation, she said, will facilitate the transformation of lives in Kenya and steer the country towards a digital economy as envisaged by the government.
"The ministry initiated the process of digitisation in 2018 and President Uhuru Kenyatta launched an online land transaction in the Nairobi registry unit on April 27, 2021. We will embrace new and emerging technologies to mitigate the effects of coronavirus pandemic to enhance our services," she said.
Ngetich said the national land management system that the ministry has built is important in facilitating online land services and deepening e-conveyance, e-services which are critical in enhancing good governance.
"The potential benefits of digital technologies cannot be drawn without addressing the question of change of management. We have now embarked on a county digitisation programme and our team is working in Murang'a and Kajiado which are part of the metropolitan area. Our next focus is Kiambu as the demand for land transactions is high," she said.
She added that paper records are eating into the land registry storage spaces and retrieving files manually is equally affecting the process.
"We have a number of cases in court whose determination cannot be made because of missing files. This is the reason we have committed to digitising land records and processes."
Ngetich however said the national government is making deliberate steps to secure land rights. "Security of land rights cannot be efficiently conducted manually due to long queues."
Esther Murugi, a commissioner at the National Land Commission said the FAO programme has supported communities in 24 counties as identified by the working group of the Land ministry, NLC and FAO through the lands governance programme.
She said through the community land working group, they have achieved public education on the land registration process as well as community land.
"FAO and EU have helped on the research of land fragmentation and use of land, development of free land annexe, development on national guidelines on large scale land acquisition and have also supported on documentation of historical land injustices and the launch of 2021-2026 strategic plan of the commission," she said.
Murugi urged the county government of Kiambu to work closely with FAO and EU as it is more massive than in any other county.
She said due to Kiambu's proximity to Nairobi, the value of land has gone up and land is being subdivided and forgetting there is a need for agricultural land.
“As we subdivide land, we also at the back of our minds need to think of how we sustain agriculture as well as going into urban and industrial lands,” Murugi said.
On the issue of lodging historical land injustices claims, Murugi said the deadline is September 21 this year and that the aggrieved should lodge the claims at the county offices.
"So far we have received 750 claims which we are working on and we expect the number to double as we near the deadline in September," she said.
FAO assistant representative Kenya Hamisi Williams called on metropolitan counties to secure the tenure for agricultural production.
"As we secure tenure most of that agricultural land instead of planting productive crops, we have planted buildings. This is both good and bad and we need to go beyond securing tenure and start having conversations about how do we make sure that agricultural land in this country is not degraded further and not focus so much on other aspects while we ignore our food and nutrition security," Hamisi said.
EU representative Kenya David Mwangi said in helping in land governance, they have facilitated service delivery in a big way.
"Digitisation of land documents will ease the pressure of retrieving documents and services delivery," he said.
-Edited by SKanyara
