August 22, 2014 - Today's News In Gazetikenya

Ngilu digs up 125,000 land files in clean-up.

A total of 125,574 land files that had been missing in Mombasa and Kilifi have been retrieved in a three-week clean-up of the registry. The missing files had delayed many land cases in the region, according to Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu. The minister, who spoke in Mombasa yesterday, also announced that squatters on the controversial 930-acre Waitiki Farm would be given land and issued with title deeds. “Negotiations between the government and the Waitiki Farm owner are on and the issue would be settled by November,” Mrs Ngilu said. The minister said after inspecting the registry that the government would issue individual titles to the occupants of the land and payment made to Mr Waitiki Kamau (Waitiki Farm owner).

Mr Kamau was ejected from the farm by squatters decades ago. “I will return to the Coast region to ensure the Waitiki Farm issue is resolved by November this year,” Mrs Ngilu said. She said 38,574 files that had been missing were recovered by ministry officials at the Mombasa Land Registry during the “reorganisation” exercise, bringing the total number of title deeds in Mombasa County to 115,909. “There are also 15 cases in which minors had been allocated land. The government will not hesitate to cancel such titles.” The missing files had delayed about 7,000 cases. In Kilifi, 87,000 files and 30,000 land correspondence letters were found. “We have discovered many files that were not accounted for. However, after our clean-up exercise, we retrieved 87,000 files and 30,000 land correspondence letters. The exercise was a success and we hope the files will be of help to our officers as they serve Kenyans.

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