News
Land records to be computerised
Lands minister James Orengo (left) and his PS Dorothy Angote during a press conference. Photo/JENNIFER MUIRURI
Posted Friday, September 11 2009 at 22:30
In Summary
- Sh3.8bn programme expected to check grabbing, says PS
The Ministry of Lands will spend Sh3.8 billion to computerise its records countrywide.
The new system was expected to curtail the loss of documents and deter land grabbing, permanent secretary Dorothy Angote said.
Coming into effect in January next year, the system will be a great relief to millions of Kenyans after widespread reports of people being robbed of their land when their records are either stolen or altered.
Ms Angote said the computerisation was being funded by the Swedish International Development Agency. Some Sh44 million had been used to build a records banking hall.
“The Ministry of Lands will ensure proper records keeping, tracking and retrieval,” Ms Angote said in a statement.
Records scanned
When complete, Kenyans will be able to access information through Short Message Services (SMSs) and the Internet.
Ms Angote said staff would be trained before the system was rolled out and testing done to ensure records’ availability and accessibility.
Old records that were no longer in use were being scanned and stored in the system. “The scanning process targets all records in the Ministry of Lands,” she said.
Falling under the ministry are the land registry, physical planning, survey, mapping, lands adjudication and settlement departments, all of which will be centralised in the new system.
The ministry has so far processed 244,620 land records; 5,621 are complete while more than 5,000 reports have been entered into the property valuation database.
The permanent secretary said the land rent process which would enhance efficiency in rent collection for leasehold parcels would be done online to eliminate the problems encountered with paper records.
The land bank will also eliminate scams where ministries and agencies have been the biggest buyers of their own land.
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I commend the heads of this Ministry for getting to work. This is a milestone in dealing with land issues in Kenya. I would suggest land records be tied to KRA. This would indicate to them who owes or has defaulted on land taxes or other fees. This would also deter grabbers from possesing large underused tracts of land as they would be faced with potential reposession if they didnt meet their tax obligation. If someone owns 500 acres of land, let them pay the taxes or give up the land!!
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This i a brilliant idea. kudos to Orengo and your team at Ardhi house. I hope coruption and inefficiency will be a thing of the past!
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