The Big Four Agenda are
President Uhuru Kenyatta's legacy projects that he has committed to execute by
the time he exits office in 2022. The projects directly relate to Kenya's
Vision 2030. The President has promised to dedicate energy, time and resources
to the ensure the success of these projects. The four pillars of the agenda are
food security, affordable housing, universal health care, manufacturing and Job
creation. The agenda will ensure an ordinary Kenyan is employed or has a
reliable source of livelihood, owns a home, has enough food and is able to
access universal health care. The agenda will ensure an ordinary Kenyan is
employed or has a reliable source of livelihood, owns a home, has enough food
and is able to access universal health care.
On other hand, Ardhisasa is
a national land information management system developed by the Ministry of
Lands and Physical Planning in consultation with the National Lands Commission,
County Governments and other stakeholders, for Kenyans by Kenyans. This platform
enables the common mwananchi to access credible, reliable and efficient land
and land-based services.
Quick Guide: A
Guide to Registering on Ardhisasa
Quick Guide: How
To Pay Land Rent on Ardhisasa
Ardhisasa project also saw
the production of Kenya's first digital topographical map and those of the
nation's 47 counties, as well as a cadastral map for Nairobi City County. The
cadastral map enables the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning to start the
process of migration to a unitary regime for land registration in order to curb
fraud and cut transaction time.
Before we check at the
relationship between the Ardhisasa and the big four agenda, let us look at one
of the areas under the big four agenda.
Affordable Housing
This main aims are to
deliver 500,000 affordable homes across the 47 counties, Reduce the cost of
home ownership by 50%, Reduce the low income housing gap by 60%, actualize
100% cost subsidy on essential health services, Reduce medical out-of-pocket
expenses by 54% as a percentage of household expenditure
With land forming the
integral part in the housing project, Ardhisasa will able to capture the
details of all the properties especially those in urban arears. This will from
the background information for assessment of status of housing in the country.
The information will be an authentic source of civil data which is important
for planning purposes in the delivery of the Affordable Housing targets.
The need for a system
In order to achieve these,
the government would want a system that will make these type of development
easy and reachable. It is not in doubt that these big four agenda will hugely
rely on availability of land for development. Therefore, Ardhisasa will come in
handy in helping the government achieve these big four agenda as follows.
Historical land disputes
The full rollout of the
programme will facilitate the resolution of historical land disputes and
guarantee the security and sanctity of the land title deed. Many times
development like setting up of hospitals has failed to take place in certain
areas because of land disputes. These disputes unfortunately can be trace back
to the history. Therefore, with Ardhisasa, the legality of these parcels of
land has been addressed. The health sector is facing critical challenges with
the land allocation which may hinder achievement of UHC targets
You don't want to
miss: Services
Offered by Ardhisasa Digital Platform.
Enacting strict measures to
regulate land costs and rates.
The continued rise of
land costs, especially in urban centers, has greatly jeopardized affordable
housing. The new digital platform will benefit all landowners and potential
landowners by providing accurate information required to support the
commercialization of land in a convenient and timely manner. This platform
will also ensure transparency, efficiency, accountability and dispute resolution
thereby dramatically reducing the number of land cases that are pending before
our courts
Availing public land for
housing and settlement.
The government owns large
tracts of land in both urban and rural areas which can be used for development.
Manufacturing, affordable housing, universal health care and plantation for
food security requires land. However, these land has been grabbed by few
individuals which has made it very difficult for such development targeted by
the big four agenda to take place. Separating public land from private land
which will only be possible by using Ardhisasa is key to the big four agenda.
Talking in one of the Ardhisasa question and answer forum, Cabinet secretary
for land and physical planning, Farida Karoney said that through Ardhisasa
public land has been safeguarded for public use. It is also notable that
public land has been separated from private land; and all public land in
Nairobi has now been indexed, documented and safeguarded for public use, the
President said. If you have a title registered in your name but the land
belongs to the public, that particular title will never be on Ardhisasa, the
CS said.
Development of good
infrastructure in both rural and urban centers. Infrastructure refers to basic
facilities, services and installations needed for proper functioning of a
system. In this case we are referring to provision of clean water, good
transport, a communication system and sanitation services.
Explained: How
Ardhisasa will curb fraud on land transactions
Enhance investor confidence
through reduced timelines in registering property.
The big four agenda call
for collaboration between the Kenyan national government, county government,
private sector and investors both local and foreign. Big development has stalled
because of investing not willing to come and invest in our country. Land tenure
system in Kenya is very corrupt that investors are not willing to come in and
invest. However, with Ardhisasa, the data will be very clean. This will
increase the investors confident by
Protecting investors and
property owners from fraudulent land transactions.
Digitalized land recording
system in Ardhisasa will streamline land transactions and ownership easing the
frustrations of property owners and buyers who normally would make a long queue
at ministry of land headquarters. such as queueing for long hours at land
offices countrywide. The system will also be integrated with service numbers to
simplify services. The new digital system will minimize overcrowding inland offices
as people go about conducting their due diligence.
Improve service delivery by
dealing with missing documents, failed file tracking system, tattered records
in the land registries and long timelines of service delivery.
It will provide a one-stop
shop for all land transactions. At the click of a button, citizens will carry
out various land transactions online drastically reducing human interactions,
delays and all other inconveniences that Kenyans have had to endure in land
registries. The ministry has worked very hard to ensure we only upload data
that is complete, valid, and has integrity on Ardhisasa.
Must Read: How
the process of digitization works though ardhisasa at Ardhi House.
Smoothen government
operations
Smoothen government
operations by linking it to external service providers including Kenya Revenue
Authority (KRA), the National Lands Commission, banks, and other key institutions
involved in land matters. In addition, Cabinet secretary for land said
that the Ardhisasa platform will assist judicial processes and provide
investigative agencies like the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and
Directorate of Criminal Investigations with accurate and examinable data that
they need to curb fraud, he said.
LIMs will minimize land
fraud by making it easy to detect changes or alterations.
Land remain to be the most
emotive matter since Independence, owing to historical injustices, fraud, and
the manipulation of land documents at Ardhi House. This system is the only
solution to these issues because it will ensure security of titles, proper
storage of land records, and bring to an end illegal allocation of public land.
While this technological shift may be painful, it is the only way to bring
sanity in the lands sector. With the introduction of Ardhisasa, missing
files, perennial fraud, corruption and illegal land transactions will be a
matter of the past.
Registry Index Maps (RIM)
as an instrument will also reduce land-related frauds. These changes will not
affect the set boundaries because they are generated from the survey fixed
boundaries already in plans since they are accessible to all the landowners.
The advantage of using RIMs is that it displays all land parcels within an area
as opposed to a deed plan that captures data on one specific parcel
Increase revenue collection
which its money will support the four agenda.
Ardhisasa platform will
increase revenue generation due to proper valuation, and payment of land rents
as well as improve urban planning and infrastructure development. It is also
expected to boost the on-going national titling programme of securing rights to
land through issuance of titles. Land sector is one of the main area with high
potentials in boosting the GDP.
One of the reasons why we
are very concerned about this digitization reform stabilizing is revenue
generation because in a framework where you cannot account for all your
properties, it is very easy for tax cheats to go below the radar and not pay
their taxes but on a digital platform, every property is documented. When one
for instance is talking of raising apartments, huge construction work coming,
land investment among others then one need also need to talk about the revenue
aspect. Over the years, this sector has not lived into its full potential when
it comes to revenue collection. This is basically because of frauds and people
failing to pay land rents and other land related services. With Ardhisasa, it
will be impossible for property owners to evade tax. When this collection is
properly done, government shall have enough money to use in the big four
agenda.
You don't want to
miss: Services
Offered by Ardhisasa Digital Platform
Conclusion
The big four agenda
achievement will entirely depend on the successfulness of this digitization
process. It will provide clear avenue for investment.
