Some Kajiado land investors appeal to DCI over rogue officers

George Kariuki holds title deeds belonging to the same piece of land. [Peterson Githaiga/Standard]

Land owners in Kajiado County want the Directorate of Crime Investigations (DCI) to investigate rogue police officers working in cahoots with lands officials to swindle them out of their land.

At the same time, investors are questioning the effectiveness of a Sh110 million Geographic Information System (GIS) launched by the county government two years ago.

The system, meant to fight corruption in the lands registry and enhance service delivery, took six months to install and update the digital systems covering the vast Kajiado County.

Among the investors caught up in the land scam is George Kariuki, who is being accused of revoking a title deed after transferring his 10-acre land in Kajiado North Sub County.

However, Kariuki in an interview with Saturday Standard, in Kajiado, yesterday, said he has never sold his land to the man who claims to have bought it.

Kariuki had already lodged a complaint with Kajiado Lands registry that his land has been fraudulently transferred.

Documents show that police wrote to the Kajiado North registrar.

But in a new twist, investigations by police in 2016 revealed that the land had been transferred to another person on January 1, 2013.

A year later, the 72-year-old Kariuki was arrested and charged with revoking the title deed.

Another victim, Zakaria Mwachama, who lost his five-acre land to fraudsters questioned the work of the mega GIS lab set up by the county.

He was referring to the digitally secured system in the lands ministry building at Kajiado town that has a geographical data base of pieces of lands in the county. It also has the size, rates status, zone and the owner information and details are readily available.

Kajiado County lands CEC Member Hamilton Parseina despite confirming that rogue officers have been conning people through issuing fake title deeds said the revolutionary system is working well.

“I am proud to report that since we launched this system, years ago we have reduced cases of land fraudsters that had increased here,” he added, adding that many errant officers had already been sacked.