Automation of land administration services can improve ease of doing business

In a recent family gathering, one of my aunts sought my opinion on a piece of land that she was following up on — family property in a different county but within the coastal region in Kenya. Knowing that I work in the land sector, she thought it prudent (as many of us would) to first consult the relative who’s knowledgeable in that area. Rightfully so as the sector has its fair share of untrustworthy professionals.

The issue at hand was that of a parcel that her parents had previously acquired jointly as part of their matrimonial property. Later on, the father sold off a fraction of the land, but did not get the family’s consent to do so! According to Kenyan law, transactions on family/ matrimonial property can be declared null and void if it can be proven in court that spousal consent was not obtained prior to the transaction. The father passed on and while the family is still in possession of the original title deed, there is lack clarity on whether the transfer of the section of the land underwent the due process as set out in law, and whether this information is with the Ministry of Lands.

To throw a spanner in the works, the rest of family has not visited the said piece of land in about 7 years. Fortunately, this is within the 12 years of adverse possession, whereby persons have a claim to property if they occupy it for a certain period.

My aunt’s ask was a simple one, whether she could log onto an online government platform and do a search to get the details of the land i.e. ownership, acreage, user, and any other details. Her belief was that in these times where one can renew the driver’s license or register a limited liability company at the comfort of your home as long as you have internet connectivity, this should be an easy task.

Hard copies of Title Deeds to be issued to land owners after completion of the adjudication process

Sadly, for land sector in Kenya, this is not the case.

In a sector where many have become victims of double allocations, an online platform where one could simply input an L/R number and get details of the ownership, size, use and caveats could transform land transactions for the better. The problem of irregular allocation would be avoided in totality. Additionally, investors would save a lot of money by being able to determine, to a greater degree of accuracy, what it would cost them to acquire any parcel of land.

“Additionally, investors would save a lot of money by being able to determine, to a greater degree of accuracy, what it would cost them to acquire any parcel of land.”

Even the government would benefit from this in terms of planning for projects. To put it into context, the National Land Commission grossly under-budgeted for compensation for land acquisition for the Standard Gauge Railway. The compensation paid out to land owners along the route of the railway ended up being almost twice of what had been budgeted for. This could possibly be as a result of not being able to ascertain ownership of land at the planning phase, and thereby getting the estimates wrong.

Rwanda, for example, have a system where you ran a USSD code on your phone, select the language and input the land plot number in question. From this a subscriber will get information on the status of the plot, and whether it’s disputed or presented as collateral at any bank.

In summary, automation of basic lands services will greatly reduce incidences of corruption when transacting on land. This is one challenge that the land reforms process hasn’t ably dealt with. For county governments who are custodians of unregistered community land, such a system will enable them to safeguard communities when investors come in search of land for development. This will be even more sustainable if counties invest in community land registries to ascertain ownership of community land. As we open up the counties (devolved governance units) for investment, adopting such tools that will increase tenure security, and consequently improve our ease of doing business index, and can unlock our full potential.