Reprieve for Kajiado land owners who are set to own title deeds

Kajiado County Lands, Physical Planning, Housing, Urban Development and Municipalities CECM, Hamilton Parseina. [Peterson Githaiga, Standard]

Some land owners in Kajiado County town who have been waiting for two decades for their lands documents processed can now breathe easy.

A Kajiado Environment and land court has ordered that the three Consultants companies hired by the county Government of Kajiado to continue with survey and title deed processing for more than 10,000 plots.

 On Wednesday, Justice Maxwell Gicheru ruled the process to continue with disputed plots not included in the process.

The court also ruled that the Kajiado County Government department of land establish a special Registry for collection of document and Leases.

The court further ordered the county Government open a bank account for the Kajiado town plot owners and the consultant to be a mandatory signatory.

It was also directed that a bank account for Embulbul town that was opened in 2016 be retained while other plot owners in other towns will pay directly to the consultant.

Kajiado Lands Executive Hamilton Parseina welcomed the decision saying that plot owners will reap big henceforth.

''We are happy with both the consensus arrived at by all the parties concerned and the court ruling which gave a green-light for the county government to continue with the process of titling'' said Parseina.

In April last year, the county government in conjunction with the National Land Commission (NLC) embarked on issuing title deeds to clear the mess.

In some areas, land disputes have been the order of the day, following double allocation by the defunct Olkejuado County Council.

The Councilors would give one person a plot but when they left office, the incoming Councilor issued the same plot to another person.

The Department of Land hired three consultancy firms to carry out the exercise. But a section of landowners petitioned the process and urged the county government to stop the process.

The consultancy firms have now been tasked to complete the process through a memorandum of understanding (MoU).