The national government is taking a giant step in its bid to solve the age-old land saga at the coast by issuing 300, 000 title deeds to coastal residents.

Leaders in the Coastal region have hailed the move by the national government to issue over 300,000 title deeds to residents in the region to help solve long-standing land ownership problems.

Land ownership is a deeply sensitive and emotive issue at the Coast since it is tied to historical injustices and widespread squatting.

The land ownership document is being issued to the beneficiaries by President Dr. Willam Ruto who is on a weeklong development tour of the region.

The issuance of the title deeds is part of the national government’s plan to distribute 500,000 land ownership documents as it seeks to address longstanding squatter and other land-related challenges that have bedeviled communities in the coast region for decades.

The President has already issued 31,318 and 94,175 title deeds to residents in Taita Taveta and Kwale counties respectively under the National Land Titling Programme.

In Kilifi County, President Ruto is scheduled to issue 36,826 title deeds to residents of Kaloleni, Rabai, Ganze, Kilifi South and Malindi constituencies.

He will also provide 4,360 title deeds to beneficiaries in Mombasa County, while a further 22,770 title deeds will be distributed in Lamu and Tana River counties.

The programme is part of President Ruto’s administration’s broader efforts to resolve historical and administrative land challenges in the Coast region, where disputes and uncertainty over land ownership have remained a longstanding concern.

The National Land Titling Programme has crossed a major milestone of issuing over one million title deeds countrywide to secure land ownership and resolve historical land injustices.

Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir and his Kwale counterpart Fatuma Achani have welcomed the President’s drive to resolve land ownership problems and promised to support the initiative.

Governor Nassir said the issuance of title deeds remains key to solving conflicts over land ownership.

“My administration will work closely with the national government to solve the emotive land issue once and for all,” said Nassir.

In Mombasa hundreds of families stare imminent eviction threats in the face from absentee landlords who assert ownership of the lands based on ancestral rights.

For centuries Arab landlords from Oman have maintained control over the 10-mile coastal strip along the Indian Ocean long before Kenya attained independence.

Governor Achani said local leaders in Kwale have resolved to abandon petty politics and work with the national government in the pursuit of a development agenda.

Achani said resolving the land issue will help the coastal counties accelerate the pace of economic growth and development.

Cabinet Secretary for Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports Salim Mvurya, a former two-term Governor of Kwale said the issuance of the land documents will usher in a new chapter of greater security, dignity and confidence for thousands of families who have lived for generations as squatters in their own land.

CS Mvurya said President Ruto has taken a decisive step towards ending decades of uncertainty, land conflicts, confrontations, threats of displacement and encroachment by private developers.

“The over 300,000 title deeds across the coastal region will progressively address one of the region’s most longstanding and emotive challenges” he said.

He said that land tenure security is now a reality for residents that hitherto lived under constant threat of eviction by private developers.

by Hussein Abdullahi