Residents of Kahawa West ward were on Saturday undertaken through training and sensitisation program on the process of acquiring the title deeds at Mahiga primary school.
The exercise which was presided over by Nairobi County Chief Officer of lands Cecilia Wangari among other county and national government officials saw the area Member County Assembly (MCA) Dr Clement Kamaru gracing the occasion.
Wangari noted that she will employ the open door policy to ensure the department serves residents efficiently and with ease of acquiring title deeds.
“We are here today to send light on this important process that guarantees you land ownership,and by the end of this year we shall have given a number the title deeds and by next year we should be through with Kahawa West.At the beginning, we will prioritise lands which have no ownership disputes and court issues. I have changed lives of Nairobians by issuing over 15,000 title deeds to low income earners and will not relent in my agenda to keep empowering common mwanachi ” she stated
Dr Kamaru on his part reiterated his commitment of continuing to work with relevant stakeholders led by the county land officials in a bid to reclaim public land grabbed by private developers.
He promised that no effort will be spared to repossess land meant for public use like expansion, recreation and parking,as institutions like schools continue to grapple with expansion challenges in the wake of learners transitioning to Junior Secondary Schools.
“I want to thank my people for attending this noble initiative and I assure them that the process of issuance of title deeds will be complete by the end of this year.I urge them to cooperate and embrace one another in land dispute resolution and take advantage of this process to apply for their land ownership documents.County administration led by our Governor Johnson Sakaja means well for us and everything will be okay in due course ” remarked Kamaru.
For years, local leaders, in Kahawa West have petitioned the government to allocate title deeds to the landowners following concerns of long queues by owners of parcels of land situated within the area flooding the Mahiga Primary School in anticipation of the registration process that would allow them get land title deeds, after 38 years of waiting.
“It is an advantage getting the title deeds because we can now do a lot of things we couldn’t do before. For instance, we can use the land to access credit,” said one of the residents who sought anonymity.
The landowners’ acquisition of title deeds was also largely hindered by a grueling court case that dragged on from 1991 to 2019, when the Lands Court in Nairobi made a ruling.
Last month,Lands Cabinet Secretary Zachariah Njeru urged leaders to help resolve local disputes in their areas to enable the Department for Lands and Physical Planning to accelerate the process of issuing title deeds.
Appearing before the Senate,Njeru noted that Ministry of Lands, Public Works, Housing and Urban Development was in the process of creating a Land Value Index which will be used in matters related to compensation.
“The Ministry of Lands is coming up with a National Land Value Index to make compensation for land uniform and seal loopholes that are used to overpay or underpay compensation for land.” he told Senators
He also disclosed that the Government was in the process of opening up new registries in areas that were not reached by the Ministry of Lands in the past including many of the counties in northern Kenya.
