The Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) has stepped up the issuance of title deeds to landowners in the city county, with 6,500 titles to be issued by the end of the week.
The exercise, which is spearheaded by the Directorate of Lands, Housing and Urban Planning, targets different zones in Nairobi including Dandora, Kayole, Umoja, Mathare North, Kariobangi South, Ngei Phases 1 and 2, among other settlements.
“The title deed issuance exercise commenced on Wednesday last week at the Green Park Bus terminal and will continue for the next 10 days where 6,500 title deeds are set to be issued,” said NMS.
NMS said it has been able to process a total of 18,356 titles free of charge in its two years of existence since taking over four Nairobi County functions.
Currently, a total of 3,456 titles are ready for issuance while 6,500 have been processed and are being printed. Further, another 6,000 titles are undergoing processing at the Ministry of Lands.
NMS took over at a time when Nairobi was grappling with various challenges in land ownership including pending survey work, bureaucracy and land disputes which have for a long time impeded the issuance of title deeds.
Out of the 37,020 plots, only 290 plots had been titled by the previous administration at a cost of between Sh60,000 and 100,000 per title.
“Nairobi Metropolitan Service took over a city that had been burdened with numerous challenges including lack of title deeds and kicked off stock taking of allotted plots which totalled to 37,020 plots,” said NMS.
The title deeds issuance was launched late last month by President Uhuru Kenyatta at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi where he issued 200 land documents to signify the start of the programme.
The national titling programme, introduced in 2013, is aimed at issuing over a million title deeds in different parts of the country out of 6 million title deeds that are ready across the registries in the various counties.
The titling programme is one of the major pillars of the Jubilee administration's promises that is targeted at restoring the dignity of most Kenyan families who have struggled to get titles for their land.
From 2013 to date, more than six million title deeds have been issued, compared to a similar number in the 50 years since Independence and 50 years before Independence.
