Survey of Kenya needs to be saved from destructive mode

In earlier years, Survey of Kenya, Kenya’s national mapping agency, was glamorous and prestigious. Located in the serene Ruaraka greens, many mistook it for a state parastatal. It was clean and well run. It attracted some of the best brains of the time. Its processes were so effectively delivered and its staff stood so diligent and honourable that those who visited for services or socially went back humbled and in marvel.

ACCURATE MAPS

It provided reliable up-to-date property and topographical maps at a time Kenya really needed them. Survey of Kenya was the bedrock of Kenya’s very successful titling programme from the late 1950s which, sadly, later slowed down.

Unfortunately, many retired surveyors, and the endless stream of service seekers, are unable to understand today’s Survey of Kenya. Because too much has changed. Staff confidence, integrity, record keeping, attitudes and delivery of services all changed.

Unless this key department within the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning undergoes fundamental reform, it’ll remain our weakest link to the protection of property rights and the development of national infrastructure. Why? Because without accurate, current and well protected maps to support titles within the country, uncertainties to property ownership and disputes will continue to dog us. And without accurate and current topographical maps, which typically reflect the relief, the natural and man-made features in their correct spatial relationships within Kenya, we risk big challenges, including unnecessary costs, whenever we try to identify positions and corridors for our physical infrastructure like dams, roads and railways. There are, of course, many other consequences to the unavailability, inaccuracy or non-currency of property and topographical maps.

DECLINE

So where did the rain start beating Survey of Kenya? Funding gaps, poor staff morale, archaic technical and business processes, slow adoption of technology, old legislation, corruption, poor leadership and a very weak voice within the ministry have contributed. There has been poor induction of new staff and very poor transitions whenever the directors of Survey leave office. It’s hard to recall when we last had an efficient handing over from one director to the next. There has been major attrition in technical capacity as some of the best and most qualified staff either resign or retire. Then the culture of not updating existing maps whenever there are changes in property boundaries or the creation of new land parcels, aggravated by the deliberate falsification or stealing of such records to serve selfish interests, makes some records held by the department uncertain and unreliable. Yet we know that property maps, for instance, provide useful evidence where there are uncertainties in the positions, relative positions of land parcels and/or their boundaries, and hence hold sway to the success or loss of filed disputes. So which way Survey of Kenya?

One appreciates there have been recent attempts to revisit the leadership of the department, in efforts to arrest its decline. The newly appointed director and his lieutenants have lots of stakeholder goodwill but will need to work extremely hard to turn around the fortunes of this department. The recent gazettement of the chair and members of the Land Surveyor’s Board will also come in helpful. Without this board, the director is a lame duck; he cannot effectively oversee the department or regulate the practice of surveying or licensed surveyors. This board too has a tall order and must hit the ground running. It could help the director to curb some of the excesses in the profession, that have seen land owners fall prey to quacks, manipulated maps and measurements.

RECORDS

But fundamentally, Survey of Kenya needs an attitude and culture change. The staff must understand the importance of the department to Kenya’s property portfolio and development. Effort must also be put into training the staff in the various technical and management disciplines necessary to drive the department in this 21st century, and be accordingly recognised and remunerated within their schemes of service. The department must, in addition, begin an aggressive drive to re-engineer its century-old technical and business processes, digitise and computerise records and procedures respectively. Big budget will be needed for this and it is upon the department to quantify and request. The old Survey Act, which confines the department to old methods of receiving and documenting records and is out of tandem with the new laws, needs an overhaul. The slow pace in reviewing this law speaks badly of the department and the ministry.

There must also be deliberate efforts to strengthen the department’s professional capacity, even if this calls for innovative methods to tap into the private sector pool, and the former staff with needed technical skills and memory that retired or resigned.

Mwathane is a surveyor: [email protected]