Over 19,000 title deeds lying uncollected in Kitui County

More than 19,000 title deeds lie uncollected at the Mwingi lands registry in Kitui County, lands registrar in charge of the region John Kanua has said.

The documents belonging to residents of six sub-counties in Mwingi are yet to be picked up by their owners five months after they were delivered by Land Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi.

In May, Prof Kaimenyi toured Mwingi and delivered 24,000 titles. Mr Kanua yesterday confirmed that by the end of last month only 14,000 title deeds had been collected.

Speaking at a mobile title-distribution event at Masukanioni shopping centre, Mr Kanua said his office had decided to take the documents to the owners because people were not going to the main office in Mwingi to collect them.

He cited lack of fare among some people as one of the reasons for the failure to pick up the important documents.

But he said the mobile distribution is only a partial solution. “Today we have come with 3,000 tile deeds, but sadly only about 100 people have come to pick up theirs,” Kanua said.

Mr Kanua also noted that land succession laws impose a lengthy and expensive transfer process on heirs.

“Many land portions were surveyed a long time ago and their owners have since died. Now their kin are having a big challenge trying to possess such parcels of land because the process is long and costly,” Kanua said.

He recommended that the laws be changed to ease the land transfer process. “We need to simplify the procedure of land succession so that instead of going through the courts, such cases can be handled through local government administrators like the chiefs,” he said.