Nairobi — Information and Communication Technology opens up possibilities for improved record keeping and land management.

Land is a highly emotional subject particularly for the 80 per cent of Kenyans living in the rural areas.

This resource defines their way of living, thinking and socio-economic engagement.

Persistent skirmishes between squatters, the government and landowners as well as among neighbours or even families show how seriously land is taken in Kenya.

Most of these skirmishes can find their genesis in the lack of or poor methods of record keeping. Land records generally capture data that maybe geological, legal or economic in nature. Geological data includes information regarding the size, shape and location of a land parcel. Legal data would relate to ownership and taxation issues while economic data includes information on land use, e.g. the type of crops, minerals or irrigation systems on a piece of land.

Currently, the Ministry of Lands and Housing is using manual systems to capture this data. Its systems may probably be just slightly better than those used by Egyptians 5,000 years ago. Recording data sorely on paper is associated with serious problems of preservation, updating and retrieval. For instance, every time a map is accessed manually, it faces the risk of wear and tear and of course, the possibility of being misplaced.

Updating such records to reflect that a certain piece of land has since been subdivided or changed hands may take months or even years. Retrieving a map for processing from a collection of national or regional maps can be such a daunting task that it may more often than not, be pushed forward and subsequently leveraged to solicit for bribes.

The manual method of keeping land records is likely to have precipitated 90 per cent of land problems faced by Kenyans today. Because of these records, it is possible for people to sell land that never belonged to them. This is the story at the centre of the ongoing humanitarian and environmental disaster in the Mau Forest.

The unsuspecting buyer is expected to check with the local land office to establish ownership details prior to procurement of land. However, the seller can capitalise on the inherent delays brought about by slow searches and updates to sell a single piece of land to multiple buyers or simply dispose off what does not belong to them.

This is equivalent to having Sh10,000 in your account and withdrawing it twice before the bank can update its records. This will leave you Sh10,000 richer. A lot of self-declared millionaires have made their money using such simple schemes.

Surprisingly, the victims of such schemes include both the public and government institutions. Government land has been frequently sold off because it did not have an easily accessible land inventory.

Information is a pre-requisite for making decisions related to investment, land development and management. Lack of an efficient Land Information Management System (LIMS) automatically compromises the decisions or policies the government and other stakeholders make.

Malaysia, one of the Asian Tigers implemented a LIMS in the late 1990s. It allows both the government and the public to ask questions for informed decision-making. The system is able to capture the geological, legal and economic aspects of land and better still, display it in various contexts. For example, the Lands minister in Malaysia can view the complete map of the country from a computer and then drill down to a region or district at the click of a button.

The computer can provide detailed information regarding a particular district in terms of population, rainfall patterns, soil composition and surrounding resources such as rivers and forests. From this data, one can easily see the extent of land over or under-utilisation in specific regions. Strategically, one can even predict the future zones of conflict arising from the perceived dwindling natural resources vis-‡-vis the prevailing and projected demographic conditions. This is land management in the 21st Century. How can we get there? Malaysia citizens can query the system from anywhere, at anytime and get the relevant information.

Searches regarding claims of ownership to various pieces of land can be executed through the Internet, eliminating chances of making dummy purchases.

Even better, the Malaysian citizen can prospect land based on available information including availability of power, water and transport. This is truly living in the information age. What hope is there for Kenyans? jwalu@yahoo.com