Beware of land fraudsters, buyers warned

Kisumu Governor Jack Ranguma has raised the alarm over land fraud in the county.

Fraudulent deals on land had affected the region’s economic development by causing fear among potential investors, Mr Ranguma said on Sunday.

“We have begun to zero down cases of land fraud affecting us. There are known fraudsters who collude with some council staff and lawyers to generate fake documents that con buyers,” he said when he visited the Central Police Station in Kisumu Town.

DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM

The governor advised land buyers to be vigilant before signing any succession papers or paying for land, saying most of allotment letters were fake.

He said he was working with police to deal with the problem.

“We have installed a geographic information system to track down land deals in the county,” he added.

School heads in the region recently complained that grabbers targeted school land that did not have title deeds.

Mr Ranguma promised that his government would help the schools to obtain the deeds.

That would save precious learning time as the school administrators wasted time while negotiating with land grabbers instead of running the institutions, he said.