The Ministry of Lands and Public Works on Sunday issued a 5-point clarification of an earlier Gazette Notice claiming that 367 title deeds had gone missing.
In a subsequent statement, the Ministry strongly denied claims of the loss of title deeds arguing that as per the gazette notice issued on September 26, unscrupulous parties who gained access to government press stole papers used to print title deeds.
According to the Ministry, corrupt cartels stole the papers in an attempt to print fake titles.
"The documents stolen at the Government printer are the papers used for printing title deeds," part of the new statement read noting that the titles themselves were still intact.
"We would like to reassure Kenyans that what was stolen at the Government printer are not title deeds but the papers used to print titles."
Furthermore, the government clarified that papers can only become title deeds after due processes are followed and the documents are comprehensively filled with owner's details, stamped by the registrar and handed over to the Ministry of Lands.
The swift response came barely 24 hours after a gazette notice from the Government Press revealed the loss of title deeds without giving details of how the loss occurred.
While pointing a finger at corruption cartels who were keen on printing fake titles, the government said mechanisms were being put in place to deal with organised groups committing land fraud. One officer working at the government printer has since been arrested in connection with the most recent fraud attempt.
Land scams in the country have become a common recurrence, with the most common tactic used to defraud Kenyans involving identifying an idle piece of government land by brokers, who collude with crooked land ministry officials to subdivide it and sell it to unsuspecting Kenyans.
Access to documents from the government printer has taken the scams to a new level as victims are now likely to fall for the trick because of the presence of official documents.
A few months ago, DCI officers arrested six suspects in Ngara, Nairobi, believed to be part of a larger land scam cartel.
The six were found to be printing fake land documents, as per instructions from different clients including rogue brokers and Ministry of Land officials.
