The eloquent, outspoken , forthright, calculative and tactful Cabinet Secretary for Lands, Housing and Urban planning The Hon CS. Zachariah Njeru shone on Sunday Evening during a prime time one on one interview with the National Broadcaster .
Here are some of the take home notes that he candidly spelt out:
“We have really moved really well on that issue and we are collaborating with the County Governments on matters relating to Community Land adjudication. We are expecting that the county governments will give us the inventories of the communities who live there and once we get, we verify and after that we gazette. The whole exercise will be faster if the concerned county government fastrack the issuances of titles.”
On the issue of squatters this is what the CS revealed:
“Squattling has been a major issue in this country and his excellency the President has directed we deal with it. In the previous administration we managed to settle 10,900 people with very little allocation of 300 million, but in this financial year, the government has allocated 2.5 Billion which will be used to settle squatters across the country , especially in the Coast Region where the problem is more pronounced.
But again when you are talking about squatters, we think of the rural landless, but it’s also important to let Kenyans know that even in the Urban areas we have these people who live in informal settlements , in deplorable conditions and as a ministry, through Kenya Informal Settlements Program we are handling that issue, so that they also not left out when we are addressing the plight of the rural Landless.
It’s also important to let Kenyans know that 61% of the total urban population lives in informal settlements. So it’s a big group that we should really think about.
On the issue of the progress of issuance of title deeds, this is what Hon CS Njeru alluded:
“To this far we have issued over 475,000 titles but our target by the end of the year we should be hitting over half a million titles. As the State Department of State Department of Lands and physical planning, we were not well funded in the previous administration, and we also generate a lot of revenue to the Government.
Now the current administration has realised that and has well funded the department, and that way we are going to do more surveys and give more titles and Kenyans will use them to improve their social economic status.