1,921 title deeds issued to Laikipia residents

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe issued 1,921 title deeds to Laikipia county residents at Rumuruti on Tuesday.

Kagwe distributed 180 title deeds to Laikipia Central, Laikipia East (971), Nyahururu (55) and Laikipia West (715).

He also said the four completed adjudication sections are some of the milestones by Jubilee government.

Kagwe further said nine group ranches have transited to community land.

“The government, under the programme, has been able to demarcate and survey 13 settlement schemes under 83,980 hectares (207,519.1 acres). This has seen more than 11,735 households settled,” he said.

According to the government, more than six million title deeds have been issued in the last nine years, compared to five million issued in the period before and after independence to the year 2013.

Early this month, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed various ministries to complete the issuing of one million title deeds in three weeks.

Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua instructed all Cabinet Secretaries to oversee the distribution of a million out of six million titles processed during Uhuru's tenure, by July 20.

Kinyua also listed the schedule of the counties allocated to each individual CS together with the summary of the title deeds to be issued.

The ministries are required to liaise with the respective regional commissioners, to organise the requisite meetings for issuance and file returns of all titles issued to Kinyua by July 21.

According to the schedule, Siaya county has the highest number of titles to be issued at 150,652, followed by Meru with 106,893 and Machakos with 92,606.

The Coast region was assigned Cabinet Secretaries Najib Balala, Farida Karoney and Amina Mohamed.

CS's Eugene Wamalwa and George Magoha will take care of Western Kenya and Monica Juma, Fred Matiang’i, Margaret Kobia and Peter Munya will be in Eastern.

Joe Mucheru, James Macharia and Mutahi Kagwe will coordinate the exercise in Central as Keriako Tobiko, Betty Maina and Simon Chelugui will oversee Rift Valley.

Kagwe said the government through the Lands ministry is set to conclude Ting’ang’a and Ndeiya settlement schemes.

He also said the degazettment of forest land in Marmanet foreland will pave the way for the completion of Gatero and Uaso-Narok B settlement schemes respectively.

“The government has identified settlement of squatters on public land and absentee landlords as the main problem affecting land tenure in the country,” the CS said.

Kagwe said in order to remedy the situation, the government is committed to regularise squatter settlements through the purchase of private land and reservation of public land for settlement.

The CS said reforms are ongoing in the sector to avoid manual transactions that have in the recent past created room for document manipulation, loss of data, corruption and fraud.

He said the manual system provided a fertile ground for malpractices.

Kagwe said the digitisation of land records that was rolled out after 2013 entailed the formation of the National Land Management Information System commonly referred to as Ardhisasa.

He said the platform contains a digital cadaster and seamless integration of all departments within the ministry and other government agencies such as KRA’s Itax platform.

Kagwe said Ardhisasa is now fully integrated within Nairobi county and is set to be rolled out in all counties.

He said the digital platform has eased the way of doing business, ensured convenient, fast and secure transactions, reduced fraud and secured the documents.

The CS urged those who were issued with title deeds to keep them safe and use them to uplift their livelihoods.

Kagwe was on Wednesday at Mweiga after a National Aids Control Council event in Nyeri and is expected to distribute the land ownership documents in Karatina and Nanyuki on Thursday.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)