Think-tank faults State over manual, inefficient land records

Land Development and governance institute Executive Director Mwenda Maka address members of press during a media briefing on status of service delivery in the land sector in a Nairobi hotel. Photo by WILLIS AWANDU/STANDARD

A land think-tank has faulted the Government for not putting in place an efficient online land-management system. The Land Development and Governance Institute (LDGI) says most land-related transactions are still manual.

“When you walk into many Government lands offices, you will see for yourself that records are still retrieved from the racks and what they are doing in the name of digitising is scanning some documents like title deeds,” LDGI Executive Director Mwenda Makathimo said last week when the institute released its 18th score card survey dubbed ‘Status of Service Delivery in the Land Sector’ in Nairobi.

He said digitisation would require about Sh10 billion. Makathimo said that a fully automated land management system would improve transaction times, ease information access, ensure efficiency in record management and reduce corruption.

 TOO SLOW

According to a face-to-face survey carried out by the institute between September 16 and October 2, 69 per cent of 913 respondents said the digitisation process is too slow.

Only a paltry 17 respondents said the system is fair while 13 per cent said the system is timely.

Sixty three per cent of the respondents interviewed were not aware of the online land-search system that was introduced for the Nairobi registry.

Lack of an efficient online land-management system, Makathimo said, has caused poor access to information, hence making transaction turnaround times the main problem affecting service-seekers.

He said 37 per cent of the respondents ranked access to information as fair while 24 per cent ranked it as easy or very easy and 39 per cent of them marked access to information as very difficult very.

“Were the system digitised, it would take you about a minute to get information on land,” he noted.

Some 65 per cent of the respondents felt that costs for services offered at the lands department are affordable, 29 per cent said they were not affordable and only two per cent felt they were completely not affordable.

Cost to the customer seeking services at the lands offices are increased by repeated visits, unofficial charges added to some services and covering long distances to lands departments.

 UNDER ONE ROOF

“The County and National governments should put land offices under one roof to avoid straining service-seekers...,” he said.

The survey also found that the level of corruption is still high at lands offices.

Corruption in those offices takes the form of missing documents, request for ‘fuel money’ to conduct site visits, unofficial payments without receipts and exclusive use of brokers in order to get services and favouritism.

According to the survey, Kenyans still feel secure having title deeds at 86.5 per cent.

The survey sought to rank different aspects of service delivery in various lands offices across the country.

Commenting on the debate on the proposed amendments to the land laws at the same function, LDGI chairman Ibrahim Mwathane called upon Kenyans to read the bills so that they can have a say in the whole debate to avoid injustices.

“I am challenging you Kenyans, including the media, to read the bills so that you can contribute to the debate and not leave it to the commissioners and Cabinet secretaries.

Doing so will help prevent historical injustices,” said Mwathane.

Mwathane applauded the Land Law (Amendment) Bill 2015, saying it would help address historical injustices and called for its fast-tracking.