• CS says titling and digitising will accomplish 80 per cent of the work of restoring order to the lands sector.
• About 15,000 users had been registered in the Ardhisasa system as of Monday.
Image: ANDREW KASUKU
Are you occupying land owned by the government? You have every reason to worry, even if you acquired it legitimately.
The government is first going after its 800 parcels in private hands in Nairobi, then it will review properties countrywide.
Records are being reviewed by a team comprised of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and Lands ministry lawyers.
The government has documented 1,500 parcels, with a view to reclaiming all grabbed government land as well as those sold to innocent buyers.
In an exclusive interview with the Star, Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney said on Tuesday the team is interrogating how the parcels changed hands and how to revert them to the public.
The CS said the government is also completing transactions on about 650 parcels that were bought but not vested – with titling and registration.
Karoney said the ministry, in a change of strategy, will follow due process to have the lands legally returned to the government.
“Even though we know this is public land, we can’t take shortcuts,” she said.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration has been criticised for the demolition of property to repossess grabbed government lands.
The CS said preliminary findings of the review show that registration of some parcels were facilitated by government officers.
“In some of the cases, we find that you can’t blame the developer. We thus said we need to step back and interrogate these public lands to establish what happened.”
“It will take time since we have taken 60 years to create this chaos. It will be painful to some people but we have to undertake it if we are to act in a more accountable manner,” Karoney said.
She said the ministry has developed a cadastral map [Detailed map with all dimensions and structures] for all government lands across the country. It will be used in the recently launched land management information system, Ardhisasa.
Titles to parcels recorded as public land will not be on the platform, Karoney said, adding they have been locked until the determination process is complete.
“Land grabbers have taken over public assets and have title deeds—issued by the government. Having started the review, the parcels will not be on the platform,” the CS said.
About 15,000 users had been registered in the system as of Monday, though the ministry faces challenges of incomplete records.
Ardhisasa checks records for accuracy, integrity and completeness, hence if a data set of a parcel is incomplete, it will not be uploaded into the system.
“The sector has experienced a lot of irregular, fraudulent transactions over the last 60 years. We are careful not to upload data of suspect quality or suspect integrity,” Karoney said.
The system has been integrated with institutions that deal with land-related data such as banks, the Judiciary, lawyers or anyone who transacts in land.
“We have written to banks and are working with them to clean their data sets. We want to improve the quality of their data since they rely on land as security to take out loans.”
In what is expected to lock out fraudsters, Karoney said the system has security that cannot allow the integrity of data to be compromised.
“The data is highly encrypted—both in residence and in transit. Much as one may hack, they cannot read anything.”
Image: ANDREW KASUKU
The CS said the system has an intelligent firewall that tracks the locations of anyone attempting to intrude.
“We believe that this is a unique reform that we urge Kenyans to support. It is the only way to restore sanity in the lands sector,” she said.
“You can’t cause a file to disappear on the digital platform because there will be an audit trail. There are also rights for every level of clearance.”
The digital platform is positioned to cut out middlemen, cartels, and brokers as landowners may only need a lawyer.
One would only need to create a login account on the system to conduct a simple search and transact, without professionals.
OLD SYSTEM
The ministry has been keeping manual records since Independence and some survey records are more than 100 years old, exposed to tear and wear.
Karoney says the old system was not only prone to loss of records but the aged paper made it hard to read the details.
“Because of the sheer volume, it was easy to commit fraud in such an environment. If you get an officer who is willing to play ball, it is easy to cause a file to disappear.”
Ardhisasa is currently live in Nairobi and is projected would be live in another 20 counties by the end of the year.
“We hope by end of 2022, we shall have completed digital migration of the ministry and the ministry will be 100 per cent digital,” Karoney said.
She said users must guard their credentials, the same way they do with their social media accounts.
“If you give someone your password, they can sell your land after accessing your account. It is important we behave responsibly when transacting on the platform,” Karoney said.
It will take time since we have taken 60 years to create this chaos. It will be painful to some people but we have to undertake it if we are to act in a more accountable manner.Lands CS Farida Karoney
The system is hailed as the foundation for fixing the many things wrong in lands before President Kenyatta’s term in office ends.
BUILDING THE SYSTEM
The Lands ministry started the digitisation project in February 2018.
Karoney said it took three years to launch the system as the ministry had to scan and digitise the records.
“We did topographical maps for the whole country and a cadastral — a collection of land parcels in a digital platform, for Nairobi and then digitised non-spatial data.”
In July 2019 the Ardhisasa platform was deployed with most of 2020 spent on testing and retesting as well as customer engagements.
The system, built 100 per cent by Kenyans, had to be recreated in March 2020 to factor in feedback from customers.
“We didn’t have any foreigner on the project. It was put up by a multi-agency team from Interior and Lands ministries as well as Cyber-Security experts,” the CS said.
“It was created to deal with our unique Kenyan problem and is copyrighted to the government of Kenya. It is maintained by government employees.”
Karoney sought to allay fears it was expensive, saying not much was spent except the direct cost of buying servers, equipment and setting up the geospatial data centre.
“Everybody on the project is paid a salary by the government. The only other cost is that we had 1,200 casuals who scanned records, and data entry.”
She said the data was necessary since the ministry needed an intelligent platform where users can interrogate data, such as on leases expiry.
“We took cognizance of the gaps we have when making decisions in the sector…it is a unique solution to our unique problems as a country.”
Karoney said the cost cannot be compared with the gains, considering the ministry started to digitise in 1995.
“You can imagine how much money we have spent. For Ardhisasa, we can say it is a tiny fraction, maybe salaries for casuals and the equipment, and securing the platform.”
Karoney said the cost is a tiny fraction of the cost the government has incurred over the years “to do a quarter of what has been achieved currently".
“What we have done has not been here before. We have digitised everything to do with lands. If you want any information on land, you don’t have to walk to any registry but just walk to the computer and get it.”
“If you want to know developments around my parcel, there is satellite imagery to tell of hospitals, roads, rivers. I am really proud of what the team has built.”
“Assuming we had spent a lot of money, what we have built is worth the investment. We have spent very little, in comparison,” the CS said.
(Edited by V. Graham)