INADEQUATE funding and lack of facilities are impediments to successful land reforms in the country, National Land commission chair Muhammad Swazuri has said.
Speaking during the launch of commission's 2013-18 strategic plan at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre yesterday, Swazuri said the quest for reforms has been met with various challenges including lack of funds.
“Many of our funding partners had insisted on seeing the strategic plan before releasing funds. The public also are not aware of land laws, procedures and regulations sometimes leading to their being confused,” he said.
Swazuri said the commission inherited more than 5,000 land cases from the Lands Ministry, which need time and resources to be finalised yet public expectations are high.
"We have revoked suspicious titles in Karura, City Park and Kisite-Mpunguti in South Coast. We will publish other revoked titles in the course of the week because that is our mandate," he said. He urged organisations and county governments to provide the commission with public inventory records. Swazuri said so far 70, out of 262, organisations and one county government have given the NLC the records.
He said the historical land injustice taskforce and the recently inducted secretaries to the county management land boards will help build the capacity of the NLC and devolve services. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga lauded the strategic plan and said it is a road map that will steer the commission.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Justice John Mutungi of the Environment and Land Court, Mutunga said the contest between the commission and the Lands ministry is “normal in a constitutional transition of the magnitude that the country is going through”.
Mutunga said the advisory that the Supreme Court will give will ensure greater collaboration between the two institutions.
In the strategic plan, the commission seeks to verify and streamline records, identify land to resettle squatters and declare adjudication schemes.
The Swazuri-led commission will also hear and settle disputes, compensate land claims, form land information databases and vet staff in the land administration and adjudication departments.
The commission introduced a new logo, revamped interactive website where the public can engage the commission, and Facebook and Twitter accounts.
The strategic plan also seeks to accelerate issuance of title deeds, develop community land bill and restitution of land matters.