Cofek opposes Karoney's land digitisation task force

Consumers Federation of Kenya has faulted the decision by Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney to establish a task force on the digitisation of land management system.

Cofek secretary-general Stephen Mutoro said the formation of the team to address the shortcomings of the Land Information Management Systems is illegal and non-procedural.

On Monday, Ms Karoney and the Law Society of Kenya agreed on an all stakeholders’ representative task force be formed to recommend guidelines towards implementation of the electronic registration and conveyancing system in compliance with Regulation 90 of the Land Registration (General Regulations 2017).

ILLEGAL

“Our attention is drawn to an advertisement by the CS for Lands purporting to request nominees for a task force on Electronic Registration and Conveyancing System. We would like to set the record straight on the illegal and unprocedural move that Cofek is an interested party in the Petition 144 of 2018 between the Law Society of Kenya versus the Attorney-General and others,” said Mr Mutoro on Tuesday.

Mr Mutoro says that the court is still to give direction on the matter with an initial ruling set for May 9 but was deferred to June 6 to enable all parties come up with a consent on, among other issues, the formation of a taskforce involving all parties to deliberate on the issues which had been raised by LSK as regards e-filing.

PROCESSES

“We are therefore most surprised that some of the parties may have secretly signed a purported consent even as the orders to LSK were extended,” he said.

Last month, LSK opposed activation of the system – which would have allowed individuals and companies to buy and sell land online without execution of various processes involving lawyers such as filling of land transfer forms – saying that it was against laid down provisions where parties to land sales were required to affirm an oath granting approval to sale of matrimonial land and verification of parties.

CS Karoney also announced that the task force will comprise of 15 members drawn from the ministry, the National Land Commission, LSK, the Attorney-General’s Office, Kenya Property Developers, Land Development and Governance Institute, Kenya Bankers Association, Kenya Private Sector Alliance, Institute of Surveyors of Kenya and Real Estate Association.

But the secretary general dismissed the list, saying that it excluded the national consumers’ body.

APOLOGISE

“To add insult to injury, the purported list of stakeholders for the proposed task force conspicuously excluded Cofek,” he said.

He demanded for the immediate recall of the advertisement and asked Ms Karoney to apologise to the court and the federation, saying that the federation will oppose any request for a consent and seek to have the active orders granted to and extended in LSK favour are stayed.

“No consent to our knowledge has been signed and that the said advertisement should not only be ignored but treated with the contempt it deserves. Our lawyers have firm instructions to have the matter proceed to conclusion as some parties have demonstrated ill-will and can no longer be trusted on out of court settlement,” he said.