Land registration laws can help resolve historical injustices

Notwithstanding its centrality to the sustainability of Kenya’s development, the role land reforms in the current development strategy is not been sufficiently amplified. This policy oversight is attributable to historical misdiagnosis of the land problem that continues view land for its sentimental value, which is above the market value. The sentimental valuation has severely restricted the accessibility of land as reflected in the diverse tenure systems that governs  public, private and community land.

Among the three land categories, only private land is viewed as factor of production and land owners’ rights are legally registered to facilitate usage and conveyance. In the other two categories whose sizes amount to 67 per cent of total acreage, land is sentimentally held and owners’ land rights are registered to a third party which acts on their behalf. Protecting the sentimental value embodied in community and public and market value in private land would be later prominently enshrined in the Constitution.