Thursday, September 3, 2020
Ministry pushes for improved service delivery at county registries
The government is on a fresh drive to improve efficiency and service delivery at land registries in the counties, through capacity building, financial support, and structural reforms.
Ministry of Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney has already kicked off a country-wide inspection tour of all the registries in Kenya as part of the monitoring and evaluation process to help in the ascertainment and resolution of the challenges faced by Ministry officials, land buyers and sellers at the grassroots.
In the last one week, the Cabinet Secretary has visited the Nandi, Mombasa, Kilifi, and Malindi Land registries and interacted with land registrars as she sought solutions to a raft of issues raised by the public, including missing files, the state of the registries, and slow pace of service delivery.
The visits, which are scheduled to spread to other parts of the country, are part of the Ministry’s plan to streamline operations at land registries across the country, improve efficiency and delivery of services to Kenyans, and fast-tract the digitalisation of land records.
This move comes two weeks after CS Karoney lauded President Uhuru Kenyatta for the support he had accorded the Ministry of Lands in the implementation of land reforms, vowing to work tirelessly together with other officials at Ardhi House, to streamline the processes of land acquisition and disposal.
In her speech during the issuance of title deeds to land owners in Nairobi two weeks ago, the Cabinet Secretary said: “On behalf of the Ministry of Lands, I would like to thank you, Your Excellency, for the immense support – in form of finances and resources – that you have accorded us resulting in the successes that we have recorded as a Ministry. Every financial year, you have increased the amount allocated to the National Titling Programme thus leading to an increase in the number of title deeds processed and issued to land owners across the country.”
Since coming into office, President Kenyatta has issued 5 million title deeds with the government currently issuing a further 38,000 title deeds to land owners from Korogocho, Mbagathi, Tassia, and Embakasi, in an exercise that will run throughout September.
