A lands officer recently confirmed to a Keroka Court that the rot at Kisii Lands Registry office was real and that it was a concern to the national government such evils persists at the local lands office.
Steve Mokaya, the county’s Lands Registrar told principal magistrate Bethuel Matata that various cases of land frauds were facilitated at the registrar until a few years ago when he took over the office. After his testimony, locals have petitioned Lands CS Farida Karoney to move with speed and investigate more.
“There are other cases of fraud which we have been involved in but as we are speaking a serious cleaning is going on and soon, the department’s dealings will be online and such misdeeds will have been eliminated,” Mokaya told the magistrate.
Karoney
The magistrate had engaged the Lands officer over a case in which two suspects were charged of making a land transfer document with an intention of taking away a parcel of land belonging to orphaned children at Bonyamasicho in Masimba, Kisii county.
The lands officer confirmed to the court that the title deed in question was not properly obtained.
“The Lands Board Consent letter used to process the title deed was not valid and there is no way it would have escaped eyes of the lands registrar without being noticed,” Mokaya testified.
Earlier, a government document examiner, Chief Inspector Daniel Gutu had also testified in the same court that signatures of the administrator of the parcel in question Joseph Omwebu and that of a witness in a land sale agreement were forged.
During a different hearing session of the case in June, the magistrate had ordered that the lands officer who was involved in the processing of the forged title deed be arrested and prosecuted.
“We should be serious with ending these issues of land fraud once and for all. And we may not succeed well in dealing with the issues if those people taking the blame for production of fake documents are also not charged,” Kimutai said.
The case will be heard again on October 18 when the final witness, the investigation officer in the matter will testify.
