Work together, Uhuru Kenyatta orders Charity Ngilu, Mohamed Swazuri

 President Uhuru Kenyatta with Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu and National Lands Commission Chairman Mohamed Swazuri at Ardhi House yesterday. [PHOTOS: BONIFACE OKENDO/STANDARD]

Kenya: President Uhuru Kenyatta has asked National Land Commission (NLC) Chairman Mohamed Swazuri and Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu to work together  to speed up land reforms.

Speaking yesterday when he visited the Lands ministry at Ardhi House, the President said with the new systems in place, Kenyans expect better services in a shorter period of time, which will in turn boost the economy.

“All of us are here  to serve  same Kenyans, there is no need to quarrel, work together and offer quality services to Kenyans,” he urged the two.

He said the next phase of streamlining services will be digitalisation of the ministry’s documents and services thereby enabling Kenyans to access information online.

“Digitalisation also helps in achieving transparency, issues of bribing will be dealt with because there will be minimal contact of people to people,” he said.

He said even some family feuds was as a result of land issues emanating  from the ministry.

“For a long time Kenyans have suffered while seeking to get their right. Their right was taken in this house, someone comes with his documents on land but when he gets in this office they are dismayed to hear that the land is not theirs, it is owned by someone else or the file is lost,” he  said.

He noted that with effective services in the ministry, institutions like bank and other financial service organisations will be able to trust documents offered as surety for loans by wananchi and thereby give loans at lower interest rates.

Massive influence

“We should all understand  land is like money, you cannot go to the bank and be allowed to move everywhere even near the safe without being noticed, but it was amazing that people could come here and move all over and yet there are important documents equivalent to money,” he said.

Ngilu said the her ministry will continue making necessary changes to provided efficient services.

Lands Commission Chairman Mohamed Swazuri said the main problem facing the ministry is plots allocated to wrong people with no available records.