The Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Lands, Jacob Kaimenyi, on Monday 13th June 2016 issued 51,200 title deeds to land owners in Vihiga County.
The Lands CS said that the land registry in the area had processed 52,434 title deeds and only 1,234 had been collected by the landholders.
“We want many residents to have title deeds which they can use as collateral to access loans and do business,” said Kaimenyi.
He said many residents have ignored to collect their titles and appealed to the public administration to sensitize wananchi on the importance of having titles.
“The public administration should make a schedule to go round all the sub counties and reach people at the grassroots telling them the importance of this vital document so that they collect the title deeds that are lying in the lands offices uncollected,” said Kaimenyi.
Mr. Kaimenyi called on the citizens to be wary of some politicians who are sending reports that the Lands Ministry is offering fake titles to the public saying the digitized title deeds are genuine and have special features that cannot be easily forged by unscrupulous cartels.
“These documents are genuine. Let no one cheat you that they are fake,” said Kaimenyi.
The Lands CS said the government, through the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning has processed 2.4 million title deeds since 2013.
“The government promised to process 3 million title deeds by 2017 and we are almost hitting the target,” said Kaimenyi.
He added that the Ministry will introduce land use policy to minimize sub division of land in the Country.
“We want to have minimum size of land that should be sub divided to properly utilize it for farming,” he said.
The Lands CS who was accompanied by the lands Permanent Secretary Mariamu El Maawy was speaking in Mbale town during the issuance of title deeds to the Vihiga county residents.
The Vihiga Land registrar Haron Okwaro said poor infrastructure was the main hindrance in issuing the titles deeds to the grassroots level and small office space to attend to residents.
