From: joachim omolo ouko
News Dispatch with Father Omolo Beste
SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 2014
Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu has began war with land cartels that she will definitely not win. Ngilu is well aware of this fact that ending corruption and entrenched land cartels at the ministry would not be as easy as she thinks.
Big money is already threatening to stall and derail the land reforms agenda, a fact that the National Land Commission has admitted. This includes the multi-billion shilling favourite hunt for land barons keen to offload large tracks of land to government at handsome prices.
Ngilu should be aware that historically the lands office has always been a company and not a State office. In other words, even the president cannot win this war.
The delay of issuing title deeds was her first encounter with the reality of how the process had been tampered to favour the land barons who include the lands officials at her ministry, right from the headquarters to the district land officers.
These cartels are working with influential businessmen, politicians and government officials in falsifying land registration documents that resulted in the issuance of more than one title deed in most parts of the country, especially at the Coast.
Ngilu has admitted publicly that many of these cartels have planted themselves in every corner and they are always faceless to the public. They operate through brokers. They could be your friends by day and enemies at night.
Cartels of land officers are well organized. They include lawyers, real estate agents and brokers who are duping innocent Kenyans into buying non-existent land. They use existing deed plans documents showing location and divisions on land to tamper with records at the Lands ministry.
These are the very people are behind the runaway cases of people buying land belonging to other people. The Syokimau demolitions that saw Kenyans lose millions of shillings in investment serves as the best example.
Once the racketeers identify a piece of land they wish to “sell”, they alert their contacts at the Lands ministry who prepare a parallel set of fake documents which they use to dupe their victims.
They usually start their scavenging at the Nairobi City Council where they scour records for details of land transactions that have been approved, including sub-divisions, by town planning committees.
Armed with this information, they forge letters purporting to be from the council indicating an approval, complete with dates and the plots that need to be sub-divided. The forged letters will have different land reference numbers. For instance, if the block title was 54/784, the racketeers could indicate their land reference as 54/256.
The racketeers also ensure that they include the exact date the Commissioner of Lands approved the sub-division. This is allegedly done in collusion with officers in the Ministry of Lands.
You wonder how they do this. Recent investigation by Standard media groups revealed how they do it. Because the original title deed ought to be surrendered, the racketeers generate plot numbers different from the original ones.
According to investigation what helps them is that the part of the title block numbers for the genuine plots will have changed. The number 54 and the new numbers is what remains, e.g. 54/89-320.
The land fraudsters will then come up with fake numbers all of which will begin with 54/, for example 54/850-1081. This can easily convince buyers who do not make thorough investigations when acquiring land. The conmen do not stop at that.
Since busy lawyers will send their clerks, and in some cases, the clerks will share the details of the plot with the fraudsters who will prepare similar titles, it is only prudent for a buyer to spare the time to go to the ministry personally.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail obolobeste@gmail.com
Omolo_ouko@outlook.com
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