Last week served us shock news with reports that several operatives had been arrested in connection with a fraud syndicate revolving around the Lands ministry offices in Nairobi.
The syndicate was reported to possess, or fraudulently prepare, all manner of documents needed to support the registration of the title.
These include certificates of title, certificates of lease, letters of allotment, deed plans, and even transfer forms, all of which are crucial to the process of preparing titles on allocation or transfer of land.
This makes it easy for the syndicate to drive the preparation of fake titles to targeted public land, or duplicate titles of private land.
The syndicate is able to forge signatures of retired or serving land administration officers, stamps of land registrars, and backdated documents prepared to suit its nefarious intentions.
Collaboration with insiders makes it possible for such fake and irregularly prepared documents to be fed into the government database.
That makes it possible for the syndicate to easily dupe Kenyans, and take their money. It complicates matters for Kenyans out to obtain land for residential and commercial investments and also endangers private tenure rights for proprietors whose titles are duplicated. This negatively impacts investments and increases land-related disputes. The threat must be accorded high priority.
The revelation of the syndicate is ominous. Kenyans have been hoping that the introduction of a digital land management system would stem irregularities and corruption in our land offices. But clearly, this may not be so.
Not unless this well-meant measure is accompanied by complementary administrative actions. For those of us familiar with the services and service points in the sector, the above wasn’t entirely surprising.
There have been tell-tale signs. Incidents of deed plans getting lost once submitted for processing of title in Ardhi House have, contrary to previous experience, increased. Where do such deed plans go? Could the details thereon be mined for irregular purposes?
We also recall the recent incident of blank title deeds stolen from the Government Printer. Is it likely that suave operatives may harness such forms to dupe unsuspecting Kenyans?
Corridors around service points in Ardhi House and Survey of Kenya in Ruaraka, where one expects to find professionals and landowners on objective missions, are frequented by persons on subtle errands such as perusing survey plans to identify unallocated public land, or playing roulette with service seekers.
Last week’s story revealed that among the arrested are insiders in the ministry who have helped to introduce fake documents into the government’s manual and digital systems.
This points to issues of integrity and professional ethics that this column has previously decried. Even as investigations on those arrested continue, the ministry may need to undertake internal vetting to weed out corruptible officers who help to destroy, distort or introduce incorrect land records. Vigil must be maintained on the “hot” land registries, and key service points like Ruaraka and the Land Commission.
