Kajiado County unveils online platform to clean up land fraud mess

My attention has been drawn to the numerous reports of property fraud published in the mainstream media recently. Since majority of middle-class individuals who cannot afford buying property within Nairobi opt for outskirt towns like Kajiado, is there a way that the county can up its game to re-assure the confidence of prospective investors burning to either construct their family homes, commercial or residential units for rent?
Amina, Nairobi

Many middle-income families have opted for affordable real estate investment in the outskirts of the city in areas like Kajiado County.

Over the years, Kajiado has had a steady growth rate in real estate development due to its accessibility from Nairobi.
Kajiado has in recent years attracted huge interest by both residential and industrial warehouse developers due to the availability of vacant parcels of land in Ngong, Ongata Rongai, Kiserian and Kitengela areas.

It is true that Kajiado has recently been a victim of negative press following reported cases of fraudulent land transactions. As a result, some banks raised concern that some land brokers had issued fake title deeds, making it difficult to use them as collateral in financial institutions that suffer losses as a result of the fraud.

However, Kajiado Governor Joseph Ole Lenku recently reassured banks that land titles issued in the area were valid to be used as collateral for loans after vetting and validation of the documents in 30 towns. According to the Governor, the county has digitised and validated its land records in more than 30 of its towns and trading centres.

He reassured that they had further established the legal owners of all pieces of land which should be treated as genuine as the county strives to reduce cases of multi-allocation and other malpractices. Two years ago, Kajiado set up an alternative land disputes resolution committee to address the rampant fraud cases that impacted negatively on property transactions.

Fast-forward to last week, the county unveiled an online portal for building approvals towards reducing fraud cases mainly perpetrated by land brokers and agents. The Kajiado Electronic Development Application Management System (KeDAMS) is developed jointly by the County Government of Kajiado, and the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) under a four-year programme funded by the World Bank Group that enhances Kenya’s competitiveness and eliminates the tedious paper-based approval process.

The county has been unleashing several tricks towards curbing fraud including launching a new generation allotment letter with eight security features in a move aimed at curbing double allocation of plots. In August, more than 12,000 plot owners acquired the new and authenticated documents in the second phase of cleaning up the mess in Kajiado’s land sector.

Early this year, a section of land owners in Kajiado County appealed to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to investigate rogue police officers allegedly working in cahoots with lands officials to swindle them out of their land.

-  Harold Ayodo is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya