What awaits CS nominee Karoney at Ardhi House

Lands Cabinet Secretary nominee Faridah Karoney will have no time to settle down if approved by Parliament for the job.

Among the pressing issues awaiting her at Ardhi House include the legality of over three million titles issued since 2013 and eliminating land cartels.

Her nomination comes with just four days left to the January 31 deadline issued to the ministry by the High Court to regularise the titles or they be declared null and void.

Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri, who has been retained in the docket, will spearhead the titles issue as Ms Karoney, a career journalist, waits to take over.

Justice Joseph Onguto ruled that the titles issued by Jubilee administration since 2013 were irregular, highlighting the chaos that characterised the land sector.

On December 19, 2016, Justice Onguto ruled all title deeds issued without the involvement of the National Land Commission (NLC) and enactment of requisite regulations by Parliament were irregularly processed and therefore illegal.

But he suspended the adverse order and gave the Government a year to fix the shortcomings. The grace period has lapsed without the State complying with the orders.

Last month, the Government sought an extension with the court adding a month that expires on Wednesday next week.

It is not clear how the Government intends to proceed given that Parliament, which is still on recess, has not approved the regulations.

Supremacy contests

The High Court verdict did not come as a surprise to many for a docket that had witnessed several supremacy contests between the ministry and the NLC.

The wars ignited immediately Charity Ngilu (now Kitui Governor) was appointed Lands CS and sought to stamp the authority of the ministry over the commission.

However, the Mohamed Swazuri-led NLC could hear none of it, leading to confrontation, exchange of harsh words and court cases.

When NLC demanded to be involved in processing of title deeds, the ministry stuck to its guns, saying the commission’s mandate was only to handle public, not private, land.

Indeed, NLC felt it had been vindicated by the court ruling with Dr Swazuri saying the verdict had reaffirmed what his commission had been pushing for since 2013.

“As you may recall, we issued a public notice in October 2014 declaring the forms illegal. We did another notice in November 2016 on the same. The High Court has reaffirmed this and in line with the Supreme Court advisory on the same,” he said.

The issues of title deeds were not the only areas of the clash between NLC and the ministry but also several incidents of private land grabbing.

Major cases

Among the major cases are the Sh8 billion parcel at Karen, another piece at State House Crescent, Langata Road Primary School playground and the Waitiki farm in Likoni.

For instance, in the Karen land, several top State officers, Lands officers, security chiefs and MPs were implicated in the fight for the 134-acre plot with late businessman Horatious Da Gama Rose.

Whereas NLC maintained the land belonged to Da Gama Rose, the ministry insisted the land belonged to former NSSF Managing Trustee Jos Konzolo, who had attempted to subdivide and sell it.

The developments at the plot were stopped in 2014 after Da Gama Rose successful obtained court orders to stop the sub-division and transfer.

The civil case is still pending in court.