Outgoing Lands Cabinet Secretary, Farida Karoney has disputed claims of irregular mass transfer of documents at Ardhi House.
Speaking to the press, Karoney noted that the move was part of the ongoing digitisation of records in Nairobi County.
She added that the need for safe custody necessitated the decision to transfer the hard copy files from Ardhi House.
"There's a lot of rumours online. I have seen a lot of posts and conversations. But those social media posts are not accurate,”
The outgoing CS pointed out that Nairobi residents would no longer have to worry as land transactions were fully digital.
According to Karoney, the digitisation of records would protect the illegal grabbing of public land and ease the transfer of title deeds.
“If you want any land transaction in Nairobi right now, you can get it in digital form.”
"All those records that were taken for safe custody have digital copies. They are in a platform called Electronic Document Management System from which you can now access all the files for Nairobi County,” she noted.
Karoney affirmed that the mass transfer was part of the digitisation efforts after the government launched the National Land Information Management System last year.
"This is the culmination of a successful five-year journey to digitize the records at the Ministry of Lands. Any transactions be they by professionals in the sectors of government or by land owners, all those records are now available digitally. Hence the decision to remove the manual files for safe custody," she told Nation.
Karoney's response comes after National Assembly deputy speaker, Gladys Shollei, raised concerns about a viral video capturing the movement of files in a lorry at the Lands headquarters.
Shollei questioned the intention of the ministry to conduct the exercise on a weekend when government offices were closed. She also urged relevant officials to launch investigations into the matter.
"Irregular and anomalous activities at Ardhi House today are of grave concern. Movement of official documents in trucks by unknown persons, on the weekend, when the office is usually closed, should be investigated," Shollei stated.
