In his lively and astute book, The Shackled Continent (Africa’s Past, Present and Future), Robert Guest opines that in most African countries informal economy is far larger than the formal one. The poor have assets – plenty of them. The failure to extend formal property rights to the bulk of the population is not a uniquely African problem. It is a feature of all poor countries like Kenya.
President William Ruto wanders the capitals of rich nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund begging for aid, investments and loans. All the while, he fails to notice a much larger source of potential wealth at home.
"In the midst of their own poorest neighbourhoods and shanty towns," writes de Soto, "there are trillions of dollars, all ready to be put to use if only the mystery of how assets are transformed into live capital can be unravelled." Unsurprisingly, aid and loans in Kenya, like many other countries, have proved futile.
Dignity comes with ownership. True ownership comes from possessing a valid and credible certificate of title to land. Many landowners, currently, have no title deeds to their lands, instead, they are given land numbers by survey.
A land number is not a valid ownership document, it’s a Registry Index Map used by the Lands Survey to display all parcels of land within a specific area. This clearly brings out the fact that informal ownership of land is the norm in our country. Land without the title deed is a dead letter.
Most slum dwellers, including in Kibera, live on millions they cannot use. A 2020 report released by The Standard estimates that Bondeni slum in Nakuru could be sitting on a small gold mine and could be the most expensive area in Nakuru City.
This is backed by the fact that a small parcel of land measuring 100ft by 50ft costs between Sh10 million to Sh15 million. An even smaller 80 by 50 plot would bring the owner Sh7 million to Sh10 million. And yet, the landowners living on this fortune only have allotment letters. Most of them, being casual workers and hawkers, cannot afford to have their title deeds processed.
A 2017 report released by the World Bank says that lack of title deeds for Nairobi’s Kibera slum residents could be costing the economy up to Sh103 billion.
The bank says a tiny clique of faceless investors, who have built shacks for Kibera’s estimated 250,000 residents, is making a killing from the slum dwellers through rent and other service charges at the expense of the biggest economic benefit, which would be derived if the land was titled and had permanent buildings on it.
“The land is owned by the government but managed by slumlords and political elite who control the land and have no interest in redevelopment (because they do not own the land), which would take away their very profitable slum business,” the World Bank says in the report. The fact is that 90 per cent of the slum dwellers are tenants in the shacks, the average size of which is 12 feet square, costing as low as Sh700 monthly.
A few weeks ago, while addressing the residents of Isiolo, Ruto said his administration will hasten processing and issuance of title deeds. However, he failed to address the fee charged for the whole process of acquiring a title deed.
Regrettably, the poor ‘hustlers’ cannot afford the fees charged at the land registry to process a title deed. They would rather put food on the table and their children through school with that money than pay it for a title deed.
Chapter Five of the Constitution, Land and Environment, Article 60 (1), Principles of Land Policy, stipulates that land in Kenya shall be held, used and managed in a manner that is equitable, efficient, productive and sustainable.
The executive summary on Sessional Paper No 3 of 2009 on National Land Policy provides that the framers’ aim, through a widely consultative process, is producing a policy whose vision is “To guide the country towards efficient, sustainable and equitable use of land for prosperity and posterity”.
Providing title deeds to the poor brings about implementation of these provisions. In a country where households and/or landowners and businesses need collateral to secure credit, title deeds offer a major form of security that banks and micro-lenders can use to issue loans which they, the poor, can use to initiate life-changing projects.
The government should consider establishing National Titling Programme desks at all Huduma Centres. The programme will work hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Lands and National Land Commission in collecting data and processing title deeds.
The programme should ensure the shortest time possible is taken to process a title deed and that the process is affordable to the poor. In doing so, Vision 2030 will not only be characterised by local investments but will also be fully realised in due time.
Law student at Mount Kenya University. [email protected]