The

Land Sector in Kenya has a low absorption

rate of its budgetary allocations. This is why the
Ministrys
call
for
increased
budgetary
allocations is never honored by treasury.

The

second issue is lack of proper legal

framework for public participation.

Under-collection
Challenge

of AIA by the Ministry

for members of the public to access

disaggregated information on Land Sector in
Kenya. This is a barrier to engaging in public
debates on this sector.

Kenya is predominantly agro-based economy, land

is arguably one of the most important natural
resources. In this respect, Kenya has adopted
critical land reforms aimed at improving land
governance and reducing land related conflicts.
However the implementation of land reforms faces
risks due to lack of clarity of roles between NLC
and MOLHUD and the ensuing confusion thereof.
For instance according to the 2014/15 budget both
institutions share similar output of issuing title
deeds with separate budgetary allocations. It is
necessary that the endless conversation of who is
in charge of what is adressed urgently to forestall
disruption of land reforms.

Double

allocation and overlapping functions

between MOLHUD and NLC for instance both
share a similar output of issuing title deeds,
that means both institutions get funding for
similar functions. It is important that the
matter of who is in charge of what is
addressed.

key target during the 2014/15 budget for

land reforms is the enactment of 4 land
legislations. However the targeted legislations
for enactment have not been named and
identified making it hard for monitoring
purposes.

 Whereas

most of the budgetary allocation

comes from the Government of Kenya, the
programme receives direct grants from
donors.

For instance FY 2013/14 to 2015/2016- SIDA

has allocated 50 Million and there is no
explanation as to what the grant is targeted
at, however it is assumed it supports
digitization of land records at the ministry.
This gives a lot of space for double allocation
of funds for the same projects thus some
critical projects for land reform are not
adequately allocated for.

 The

NLC budget has progressively grown from

2012/13 where the budgetary allocation stood at
125 million to 652,338,149 million in 2014/15.
The paltry allocation to NLC has resulted to major
hindrance in land reforms. This has costed the
country a lot in terms of investment and
development opportunities. Kenyas ranking in ease
of doing business dropped from 122 in 2013 to 129
in 2014(out of 189 countries). The country is
currently ranked 12 in sub-sahara Africa compared
to Rwanda which is at number 2 and 32 worldwide.
One of the factors to this is the time and finances
required to sub divide land or get a title deed this is
despite high budgetary allocations with no
improvement in service delivery.

 The

CLB should not just be rushed to be

legislated but also be adequately funded
to operationalize it. If this is not done this
will be another useless paper document.
The repeated nature of audit queries in
the MOLHUD in terms of under
expenditure, unvouched expenditure,
under collection of A-I-A, presenting
incorrect accounts for audit should be
dealt with under the PFM Act, 2012 which
specifies sanctions for super rogue
ministries and departments.

 However

implementation of PAC and

PIC recommendations arising from
audit reports for action in parliament
are usually lost in ensuing political
debates. There is urgent need for
rethinking the whole arrangement of
dealing with audit reports and
recommendations apart from
traditional PAC and PIC methods.