Banks poke holes in Ardhisasa for delaying land transactions

An association of 47 banks has raised concerns about the government’s digital land registration system currently applicable to Nairobi, saying delayed transactions have denied them billions.

The Kenya Bankers Association joins lawyers, legislators and the public in voicing concerns about the National Land Information Management System, named Ardhisasa, which anyone must use to transact on a plot in the capital.

In a memorandum recently submitted to Lands Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri, the association singled out 15 issues that range from problems doing searches for uncooperative owners to asking people to allow a transaction without showing them the document they are dealing with.

“Can the Ardhisasa system show the documents one is executing before signing off?” reads the memorandum.

Nearly a year since its launch, Ardhisasa has caused confusion and uncertainty in land transactions in the capital. The system so far applies to Nairobi, with its roll-out to the rest of the country scheduled to happen in phases.

On paper, Ardhisasa is supposed to streamline land transactions. Information relating to survey, physical planning, land administration, registration, valuation, adjudication and settlement is supposed to be obtained and processed digitally.

Illegal land transactions

As mentioned by President Uhuru Kenyatta during its launch on April 27 last year, it would cure many problems. “Missing files, perennial fraud, corruption and illegal land transactions will be a matter of the past,” he said.

But the system, created by local developers over three years before it went live, had lots of teething problems. In June, Mr Eric Theuri — the chairman of the Nairobi branch of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) — claimed that two months later, no single transaction had been successfully completed in the system. 

Yesterday, Mr Theuri told Sunday Nation the challenges persist.

“It’s not working yet. We have done very few transactions,” he said, noting that there is no way around it as the authorities are compelling people to use the system. “Essentially, there is no work going on,” he added.

Bankers say the hiccups have put on hold transactions worth Sh102 billion, while the LSK Nairobi branch said last year that multibillion-shilling land transactions had stalled.

Stakeholders are also questioning the slow pace of transferring documents pertaining to plots. Lawmakers are also questioning the money that has been pumped into the project, arguing there is no corresponding output.

Digitisation process

The National Assembly Budget and Appropriations, and Land committees have recently observed that close to a year later that while the ministry has utilised 60 per cent of its Sh10 billion budget, implementation is still within Nairobi.

“The committee noted that the project continued to absorb budgetary allocations without corresponding output. The actual cumulative expenditure as of January 2022 was amounting to Sh5.9 billion out of the estimated total project cost of Sh10 billion,” says a report by the Lands and Physical Planning Committee.

The Lands ministry, however, remains upbeat that Ardhisasa is up to the task and the digitisation process is on the right track.

Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney said it will take time for the net result to show, noting that digitisation is expected to be completed by 2024 and full stabilisation of systems at Ardhi House could take over 30 years for Kenya to reap full benefits.

Ms Karoney said about 20,000 parcels at the Nairobi registry have been processed for digitisation in the past 10 months, blaming the pace on the layers of fraud that have covered land records and which cannot be transferred onto Ardhisasa. “We are very rigid when it comes to the integrity of data we are uploading,” she said.

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