Lawyers attached to the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) on Friday, January 20, staged a march from the Supreme Court of Kenya to Ardhi House protesting against the management of the National Land Information Management System popularly known as Ardhi Sasa.
The advocates claimed that LSK had earlier engaged the Ministry of Lands to address the challenges regarding Ardhi Sasa but the Ministry did not implement the changes agreed upon.
Ardhi Sasa was launched in April 2021 to eliminate long queues at Ardhi House and handle cases of land fraud.
“Advocates across the eight LSK branches will hold a peaceful protest march against delays, inefficiencies and collapse of service across the land registries. Members of the public are invited to join,” Law Society of Kenya President Erick Theuri announced the demonstration in a statement.
LSK further stated through its protest notice on Thursday, January 19, that it had canceled an earlier protest to allow its members to track the progress of the implementation of their proposals to the ministry.
“The Ministry was given time to put in the necessary personnel and resources required to fast-track the process,” the notice explained.
Furthermore, the society added that the inefficiencies of the ministry had caused hardship to members of the public.
“The ministry of lands failed to implement the very mutual recommendations arrived at by both institutions.
“Because of that, members continue to experience delays inefficiencies, and service collapse across the country's registries,” the notice added.
On Thursday, January 19, the government promised to address the pending issues affecting land transactions within 60 days.
The Principal Secretary for the State Department of Lands and Physical Planning Nixon Korir stated that the delays were a result of a backlog of over Ksh100 billion in transactions at the Ministry of Lands.
Korir, however, added that the ministry was working towards clearing the backlogs while fast-tracking the process of digitizing all land records through the Ardhi Sasa platform.
