- Uhuru presided over the launch of an online platform titled 'Ardhi Sasa' at the Survey of Kenya.
- The platform allows Kenyans to search, transfer property, order plan and title.
President Kenyatta on Tuesday said the ongoing land reforms are meant to cure historical injustices as well as curb fraud, corruption and manipulation of land records.
"At the click of a button, citizens will carry out various land transactions online drastically reducing human interactions, delays and all other inconveniences that Kenyans have had to endure in land registries," he said.
Uhuru presided over the launch of an online platform titled 'Ardhi Sasa' at the Survey of Kenya.
The platform allows Kenyans to search, transfer property, order plan and title.
Uhuru said land injustices have roots within Kenya's colonial experience which, sadly, Independence alone did not fully resolve.
He said the new system will enhance the effectiveness of the land management regime. Already, the system is working in Nairobi after the old one was shut on Monday.
Uhuru said the National Land Information Management System is the culmination of three years of hard work and investment undertaken to streamline the land administration system.
The solution to the land problem is finally at hand, he said.
Uhuru said the new system makes redundant all previous and ongoing reforms in the land sector by providing an updated and easily accessible database of land records.
He said never again will plot owners be confronted with messages such as 'plot not for sale', 'danger', and 'trespassers will be prosecuted'.
The platform is a wholly Kenyan initiative developed by young Kenyans for Kenya, he said.
The President said the new digital platform will also secure innocent Kenyans from exploitation by cartels, middlemen and fraudsters.
"With the advent of Ardhi Sasa the issue of missing files, perennial frauds, corruption and illegal land transactions will be a matter of the past," he said.
The full rollout will facilitate the resolution of historical land disputes and guarantee the security and the sanctity of the land title.
Uhuru said Kenya's digital topographical maps have also been developed.
He said the cadastral maps of Nairobi City county are ready.
"The development now allows the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning to start the process of migration to a unitary regime of land registration in order to curb fraud and also to cut transaction time," Uhuru said.
Her said public land has now been separated from private land.
In Nairobi, he said, all public land has been indexed, documented and safeguarded for public use.
The platform will benefit all landowners and protect them by providing accurate information required to support the commercialisation of land as property in a convenient and timely version.
"This platform will also ensure transparency, efficiency, accountability and dispute resolution thereby dramatically reducing the number of land cases that are pending before our courts," he said.
Kenyatta said digitisation is set to be rolled out in a phased and gradual manner to the rest of the country.
"Another 20 counties will be on board by the end of the year and we do project that all the counties will be covered by the end of 2022," he said.
The President said the move consolidates geospatial data and will also provide an interface between critical and interrelated government services such as business registration services, the registration of persons, the National Land Commission, KRA, and professional actors in the land sector.
"We shall soon be integrating this platform with the Huduma Namba system and the county government revenue system so as to enrich the quality of data and enhance service delivery across the government," he said.
Uhuru said the Ardhi Sasa platform will assist judicial processes and provide investigative agencies like EACC, DCI and DPP with accurate and easily examinable data that they need to curb fraud in the land sector.
He said some sections of regulations will have to be aligned in order to secure and facilitate digital transactions.
These include the Properties Act assented into law in December last year.
He said many title deeds need to be regularised for landowners to enjoy full benefits.
The President said the government is committed to ensuring and enhancing all aspects of land, security of tenure and sustainable use of land as an economic resource.
He directed the ministry to identify cleaning up, piecing together and digitisation of all records, private and public, into one source of truth.
This, he said, will eliminate any possibility of erroneous information, fraud or manipulation of land records with respect to future transactions.
Kenyatta said the government will ensure that all land belonging to the government and learning and research institutions and cultural sites, protected community lands and public utilities countrywide is secured from land grabbing or encroachment.
He urged Kenyans to support the ministry in the validation of all land records.
Land CS Faridah Karoney said the new platform will boost the government's efforts to give title deeds.
The CS said the new system has succeeded after failing to materialise for 26 years.
"It will provide a one-stop shop for all land transactions," she said.
Edited by Henry Makori