Ombudsman Calls for Urgent Reforms in Land Administration
Kenyans seeking resolution of their matters at the Ministry of Lands face delays running into years, with little progress made to resolve complaints pending for more than 20 years.
According to statistics by the Commission on Administrative Justice (Office of the Ombudsman), service delays at Lands Registries across the country remain the most serious bottleneck, with some complaints taking years to resolve. While 263 cases were addressed within three years, 119 dragged on for 4-15 years, 8 cases took up to 25 years, and 2 cases remained unresolved for over 25 years.
This was disclosed today, Friday, March 21, 2025, by the Chairperson of the Commission, Mr. Charles Dulo, during a press briefing at the Commission’s offices in Nairobi. He was flanked by Vice Chairperson and Commissioner in charge of Access to Information, Ms. Dorothy Jemator, Commissioner in Charge of Complaints and Investigations, Hon. Charles Njagua Kanyi, and Commission Secretary/CEO, Ms. Mercy Wambua.
Over the past five years, the Ministry of Lands has accounted for the second-highest number of complaints, representing 6.88% of all complaints received by the Commission. Since 2019, the Commission has received 392 complaints against the State Department for Lands and Physical Planning, of which 186 have been resolved, while 206 are pending.
The most prevalent issue is delayed services, which make up 38% of all complaints (147 cases). Many citizens have reported long waiting times for essential services such as the issuance of title deeds, conclusion of land transfers among others. The second most cited issue at 21% (81 cases) is unresponsive officials, that leave complainants stranded due to the lack of communication.
Other concerns include inefficiency (29 cases), manifest injustice (26 cases), limited access to information (21 cases), and administrative injustice (18 cases). Cases of unlawful conduct, unfair treatment, abuse of power, and corruption were also flagged, albeit in smaller numbers.
The Commission has also received complaints from the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) which collated complaints from a number of stakeholders including lawyers and law firms raising similar issues against land registries. These issues were raised with the Land and Justice Committee of the LSK.
From the complaints received from LSK, the majority relate to the ardhisasa platform (14 complaints) most of the complaints were on issues of administrative injustice, abuse of power and delays.
The incomplete digitization of records in land registries and the sub-optimal functioning of the Ardhisasa platform is causing inordinate delays and creating loopholes for corrupt practices to persist.
Consequently, the Commission has directed the Principal Secretary, State Department for Lands and Physical Planning, to process and resolve all the pending 206 complaints within 60 days and to provide a compliance report within 90 days to the Commission, failing which the Commission shall give the office holder notice to show cause as to why he should not be declared unfit to hold public office.
The department has been advised to implement urgent reforms to streamline land processing procedures, enforce accountability measures, and enhance transparency in its operations, among other reform measures to improve service delivery.