Mombasa county lands to go digital to fight forgeries, theft

Lands and Physical Planning Principal Secretary Nixon Korir on Wednesday held talks with Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir to collaborate in the digitization and updating of land titles.

The two teams agreed to select a technical committee that will spearhead the process of supporting Mombasa county in accessing records of the national government and working with the ministry in the digitisation process.

PS Korir lauded governor Nassir for collaborating with the national government in the deployment of technology in improving access to land management information.

"In the past, it was difficult to work with the County Government. When you reached out we felt that we should quickly roll out," Korir said.

"We have completed digitization for Nairobi and the second County that we wanted to start working on was Murang'a but because of your initiative we will simultaneously work on Mombasa."

The PS said the government will also train and support the County Government on how to use Ardhisasa, the online portal for managing and accessing land management information.

He said access to the Ardhisasa database will support the County Government in planning, collecting revenues and other County functions.

He said digitizing and making the data available on the portal will be a great boost for fighting forgeries and other forms of land theft.

The PS and the Governor formed a technical team that starts work immediately to go through all available land documents before the process of digitization kicks off in the shortest time possible.

Governor Nassir said despite the land size of Mombasa, the County has only 42,000 title deeds in its records and that was why it wants to collaborate with the National Government in the digitisation process.

He said the digitization of land titles will help the County Government as well as property owners in valuation processes.