- Inefficient land governing bodies
Land administration in Kenya has always been chaotic, Mr Gitonga laments. “For close to two decades, we did not enact any significant land laws and this led to the chaos that is still plaguing the sector. The passing of the new Land Act in 2012 brought a semblance of sanity to the industry, but the way many systems run is still archaic and deplorable,” says the KPDA director.
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Mr Gitonga lauds the move by Land Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi that saw him disband and then re-appoint all land control boards representing 57 registries. “The former land control boards were a monument to laxity and high levels of corruption; it was clearly time for reforms,” he says.
But KPDA regrets that even now, the inefficiencies that have plagued the Ministry of Land, the National Land Commission and the land control boards continue to haunt developers. Unscrupulous Kenyans have taken advantage of the inefficiencies of our systems to sell land with dubious title deeds, often in collusion with officials from the land ministry.
“It is painful for an aspiring developer to invest millions of shillings in a piece of land, only to spend years in court arguing about the validity of its title deed,” Mr Gitonga says.
- Bureaucracy
Selling land in Kenya, Mr Ojijo complains, can take up to six months or even longer. He attributes this to the complicated legal requirements that make transactions drag on needlessly. He says ideally, a simple land transaction should take between 14 to 30 days.
County governments do not help matters when it comes to fast-tracking land processes, with a simple matter like obtaining a land-rate clearance certificate taking up to two months.
When it comes to construction , Mr Ojijo says, sometimes builders have to seek similar permits from their county authorities and national bodies such as the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and the National Construction Authority (NCA).
Some approvals can take up to two years, and both the country and developers lose money during this period, when no meaningful development is taking place.