NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 27 – President Uhuru Kenyatta has today launched the National Land Information Management System (NLIMS), a digital land resource management platform aptly named Ardhisasa, designed to enhance the security of land records, speed up land transactions and curb fraud.
The President said the digital platform, Ardhisasa, will relieve innocent Kenyans from exploitation by cartels, middlemen and fraudsters.
“Missing files, perennial fraud, corruption and illegal land transactions will be a thing of the past when this programme is eventually rolled out throughout the country,” he said.
At the click of a button, users will now be able to search and carry out various land transactions, drastically reducing human interactions, delays and other inconveniences previously experienced at manual land registries.
Ardhisasa platform is a Kenyan innovation built after three years of painstaking work by a multiagency team of young Kenyans. Citizens and investors will now be able to access Government services and information on land from the comfort of homes or offices, using mobile phones or computers.
The President spoke Tuesday when he presided over the launch of Ardhisasa at the National Geospatial Data Centre in Nairobi. The phased roll out saw introduction of a wholly digital registry in Nairobi, with another twenty counties being on-boarded to the digital system by the end of the year.
“The digitalisation of land services will be rolled out to the rest of the country in a phased and gradual manner as we incorporate feedback from users. We project to cover the entire country by the end of 2022,” he added.
While the digitalisation of services in Nairobi is complete, there are aspects that require alignment with the law to facilitate digital transactions. These include sectional properties – or apartments – and other sectional units that are in the process of being brought under the Sectional Properties Act, which was signed into law in 2020.
This is in addition to many titles that need to be regularised before land owners can enjoy the benefits of these far reaching reforms. “Ardhisasa platform will assist court processes and investigative agencies like the EACC, Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the DPP to curb fraud in the lands sector,” President Kenyatta said.
The landmark project is part of an array of programmes that the government is undertaking to consolidate geospatial data that will provide an interface between critical but inter-related government services such as the National Addressing System, Business Registration Services, the Registrar of Persons, the National Land Commission, Kenya Revenue Authority and professional actors in the land sector.
“The platform will increase revenue generation due to proper valuation, and payment of land rents as well as improve urban planning and infrastructure development. It is also expected to boost the on-going national titling programme of securing rights to land through issuance of titles,” said Faridah Karoney, CS, Ministry of Lands & Physical Planning.
The President emphasised that digitalisation of land administration was part of the government’s broad policy of ensuring seamless synergy and cohesion between sectors that are crucial to the overall economic development of the country.
“land is a critical enabler of all the pillars of my Big Four development agenda namely; universal healthcare, affordable housing, food security and manufacturing,” he said.
He observed that the continued geospatial survey and mapping of national resources would facilitate quality physical planning, spur increased revenue collection, and promote environmental conservation by use of detailed and accurate maps.
