Owners of 50,000 plots in Eastlands have to wait much longer before they get title deeds as City Hall audits records to identify real owners.
Governor Mike Sonko said on Saturday that the issuance of 50,000 title deeds was stopped due to illegal allotment of land in some areas.
“We will not issue title deeds until we conduct an audit to identify the genuine landowners and weed out land grabbers from the list of beneficiaries,” Sonko told representatives of Mukuru Kwa Njenga residents who have been involved in a tussle with some land dealers over a property given to the squatters by the national government in the ’90s.
Some unscrupulous land dealers are said to have forged ownership documents and sold the property to private developers.
“The land in question is public property since the government allocated it for settlement of squatters after a motion on the same was approved by the National Assembly. We are going to present the facts before the court because we know the land is public property,” Sonko said.
President Uhuru Kenyatta kicked off the issuance of 50,000 title deeds on May 30, last year, at Jacaranda grounds in Embakasi.
This was intended to unlock business and investment worth more than Sh20 billion. But the process stalled and one year later, not a single title deed has been issued.
The delay has raised the alarm and County Assembly Planning committee headed by chairman Antony Kiragu has embarked on an inquiry. The exercise started two months ago after the team received complaints from Nairobians that despite paying for the processing of title deeds, they have not received the documents.
Nairobi county blamed the Lands ministry is to blame for delays in issuance the title deeds in Nairobi’s Eastlands area.
Lands Ministry officials are said to have twice ignored summons from City Hall.
Lands PS Nicholas Muraguri blamed the county government for the delay when he appeared before the National Assembly Lands committee. He said City Hall has been collecting money from residents to facilitate the processing of lease and title deeds since 1993.
Parliament is investigating the matter after being petitioned by Embakasi West MP George Theuri, who had said that more than 40,000 constituents have paid the county three times for their titles to be processed.
“The first payment of Sh30,000 per plot was done in 1993 through Musyoka Annan Advocates. The second was paid directly to City Hall and the current one is being paid through Mbugua and Otido Advocates,” he said.
It is feared that landowners could have been swindled of Sh2.7 billion through a well-coordinated plot by City Hall and law firms.
The five law firms that appeared before the committee blamed the delay on both the ministry and the county's land department.
Acting county Land secretary Pauline Kahiga said she had by March handled about 1,700 lease documents.
Former County Lands executive Charles Kerich had recommended that a tracking system be introduced where documents can be followed when they are moved from the county to the ministry and vice versa.
City Hall set up an office to deal with the title deeds issue but up to date, nothing has been heard on the progress.
