Why Eastlands land owners are yet to get titles

Ministry of Lands and Nairobi County Lands department are to blame for delays in issuance of title deeds to the capital city’s Eastlands residents.

This emerged after an inquiry by Nairobi County Assembly Lands, Planning and Housing committee into the title deeds saga after it emerged that President Uhuru Kenyatta was duped into believing that he was launching the issuance process of 20, 000 titles yet only 79 were genuine.

The two offices have now come under fire from the City MCAs for stalling the process launched by President Kenyatta in May last year. So far, only 1, 023 titles are ready against a target of 100, 000 by December last year.

The committee chair Anthony Kiragu blamed the Ministry of Lands for holding onto processed titles long after the law firms involved in the process have cleared with them.  

“Nairobi residents have lost faith in the entire process and most of them are not willing to pay for processing of their titles,” said Mr Kiragu at the Nairobi County Assembly on Wednesday.

The Waithaka MCA has also accused the Ministry of processing title deeds without following the due process of verification of leases. This, he said, had led to the introduction of errors on the documents.  

He said the heads of the five law firms who appeared before the committee said there were delays in processing of the documents from City Hall Lands office and the Lands Ministry.

Mr Kiragu reported that the lawyers said that even after preparing and forwarding leases to the county for transmission to the Ministry, but most of the lease documents were still lying at the county offices.

“This indicates either lack of dedication or capacity both from the county and the ministry. It is evident that there is no synergy between the two in the execution of the programme. Even some of the schemes earmarked in the project to date are yet to be surveyed with officers withdrawn two days after the launch of the process,” he said.

However, City Hall acting County Secretary Pauline Kahiga defended the county saying that the verification process is a tedious process that takes time. She said that she had so far handled 1, 700 lease documents.

“I personally do the verification of the documents, which can even take a month, before appending my signature, sealing them then releasing to the County Attorney to deliver to Lands executive for onward delivery to the Ministry,” said Ms Kahiga.

The ward representatives have now threatened to write to the Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji to investigate the process.

This comes after officials from the Ministry snubbed the committee despite summons to appear before it.

“Ministry has been elusive on this matter by failing to attend two sittings of the committee, a matter which the committee finds to be in contempt of our mandate. We will not hesitate to invoke provisions of the law to ensure that the summons are honoured and the titling issue fast tracked as intended,” he said.