There was joy in Kilifi as more hundreds of residents officially became proud owners of their pieces of lands after the government continued with the distribution of thousands of title deeds across the county.
For many years, Kilifi residents have been locked into land ownership conflicts with allegedly land grabbers but the government came up with amicable solutions and embarked on distribution of the documents to the rightful owners.
On Monday, Kilifi County Commissioner accompanied by former Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) for lands and Kilifi governor aspirant Gideon Mung’aro visited Ganze, Rabai and Kilifi South to steer the distribution of over 12,000 title deeds.
Rabai residents led by Patricia Mlaa expressed their joy saying they had spent a lot of money endless struggle to acquire their titles for many years without success but thanked the current administration led by President Uhuru Kenyatta for availing the documents right in their areas of residence and free of charge.
“We have been in a state of helplessness looking for these title deeds but I am thankful for this day. We used to spend a lot on journeys and still came back with nothing. We have been struggling but because of our aspirant leaders and those in power have made a day of joy for us because they have brought them home.” She happily said.
They added that getting their title deeds have given them peace of mind and applauded the government for their prompt solution to their land woes.
“The decision of bringing these documents here have made us happy and we are saying thank you very much, you planned a great assistance to us”, Justine Wanje, Ruruma village added.
The County Commissioner Kutswa Olaka told residents at Petanguo village in Ganze that the propaganda that Kilifi region had been neglected in terms of land issues is misleading since the government has been working to solve the problem over the last ten years.
Mr. Olaka told the residents that over 5,000 title deeds belonging to Ganze residents were ready for collection and ordered the sub county administration to store them safely in the local offices to make them easily accessible to owner who did not show up yesterday for the issuance exercise.
“The government set hundreds of millions of shilling to ensure residents in Kilifi also benefit from the processing and distribution of title deeds. The fruits of that initiative is that right now we have more than 39,000 title deeds. We distributed some of them in Kaloleni, and last week we did the same in Magarini and Malindi”, he said.
Hon Gideon Mungaro took credits of the land ownership achievements saying he is the one who pushed for land solutions and sped up the whole process of preparing the documents when he was the CAS for lands in the outgoing government.