Lands Cabinet Secretary (CS) Alice Wahome, has put on notice officials at the Kiambu Land Registries over theft of government revenue, warning that action will be taken against those found culpable.
The CS said in most of the Land Offices she has visited, gaps in revenue collection and filing have been noticed, indicating theft of public funds.
Speaking after an impromptu visit to Kiambu and Ruiru Land Registries, the CS announced that she will intensify supervision and evaluation to completely weed out the theft and seal all the loopholes for corruption to enable the government to get the much-needed revenue for development.
She cited cases that deal with land rates, saying some unscrupulous officers and valuers from the Ministry strike deals with property buyers and sellers so as to steal.
“For instance, you find a transaction where the amount stated by the owner of the property is Sh1 million while the valuer returns at Sh5 million. In others, the owner values their land at Sh120, 000, then the document turns out to be Sh3.5 million. If we have a reckless or compromised valuer, they will go with a transaction stated by the owner of the transaction,” said Wahome.
The CS, however, said measures have been put in place to digitise all transactions and curb loss of revenue as the Ministry gears up to double the annual collection from Sh 15 billion currently to Sh 30 billion.
She said years ago, the Ministry used to collect Sh9 billion in revenue but through cases of digitisation, they have doubled the amount to Sh15 billion this year.
“We are duty bound to offer efficient service to Kenyans and any loss of revenue is likely to affect our operations as a department,” said Wahome, at the Ruiru Lands Registry, where she was accompanied by area Legislator (MP) Simon King’ara.
She cited the Ruiru, Kiambu, Narok, Machakos, Eldoret, Thika, Naivasha, Ngong, Kajiado and Mombasa registries as the biggest in revenue collection, adding that more focus on streamlining operations will be directed towards them.
Earlier, she had visited the Kiambu Lands Registry, where she gave registrars and other officials a dressing down, saying they must up their game in meeting revenue targets or ship out.
Wahome announced plans to renovate and expand land registries across the country, noting that many of them lacked space to offer effective service to the public.
She singled out the Ruiru and Kiambu registries, where the Ministry had to improvise and put in metal containers to serve as additional office space.
However, as a long-term measure, the CS said the premises will have to be expanded to meet the growing demand for services mostly occasioned by the subdivision of land parcels in the peri-urban areas of Kiambu, Kajiado and other counties neighbouring Nairobi.
By Muoki Charles
