Understanding Ardhi Sasa

The National Lands Information Management System dubbed ‘Ardhi Sasa’ was formally launched on 27th April 2021 by the Former President of the Republic of Kenya, H.E Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta.

Under Section 6 of the Land Act No. 6 of 2012, the Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning is mandated to coordinate and manage the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. In fulfilment of this role, the Ministry embarked on developing technologies and policies as well as putting up the necessary resources to promote the sharing of geospatial data throughout government levels, private and non-profit sectors, and the relevant stakeholders.

The outcome of the foregoing initiative was the Ardhisasa Platform, intended to enable the common mwananchi to access credible, reliable and efficient land and land-based services.

How the Ardhisasa Platform Works

Essentially, the Ardhisasa platform is an information system that enables the capture, management and analysis of geographically referenced land-related data to produce land information for land administration and management decisions. The system integrates all operations of the Ministry of Lands’ line departments and provides a one-stop-shop where end-to-end transactions in relation to land are conducted.

The services offered on this system include:

1. Land registration services - These include registration of cautions, charges, leases, certificates of title/leases, replacement of titles, restrictions, searches, assessment for stamp duty and transfers;
2. Land administration services – These include processes such as subdivision, extension of leases, change of user, consents, lease preparation, the extension of user, and renewal of leases;
3. Physical planning services - These include approval of part development plans, plan preparation, and issuance of certificates of compliance;
4. Survey and mapping services such as subdivision, amalgamation, new grants, re-survey, surveying of sectional properties, extension of leases, and change of user;
5. Valuation services such as asset valuation, government leasing, government purchase, estate administration, and arbitration;
6. Adjudication & settlement of land; and
7. Land allocation services by the National Land Commission.

Prevailing Challenges with the System

The challenges faced when using the Ardhisasa Digital Land management platform have resulted in inexplicable delays, inefficiencies and the total collapse of services at the land registries with the following resultant adverse consequences:

1. The inability to conduct searches and verify land ownership records;
2. Land owners’ inability to access credit through loans from Banks and credit saccos thereby stifling businesses and stunting economic growth;
3. Banks, Saccos and financial institutions are unable to disburse credit, with an estimated amount of over Kshs. 100 Billion in loans frustrated, due to the delays experienced during registration of charges;
4. The Government has been unable to collect revenue amounting to millions of shillings in the form of stamp duty;
5. The inadequacy of the staff at the lands office to address issues raised by advocates and land owners through the Ardhisasa customer care tab on the Ardhisasa platform; and
6. The affordable housing scheme is likely to be adversely affected as investors will be apprehensive about their ability to sell and transfer the housing units to potential buyers.

Access to Justice: Yay or Nay?

The Ardhisasa system aspires to provide simple and seamless workflow between various institutions, government agencies, the general public and stakeholders, as well as to ensure efficient and improved land registry service delivery to Kenyans.

However, as has been witnessed, the system has been marred by a number of challenges. Land registries across the country continue to experience inefficiencies arising from lack of adequate personnel, missing files, incomplete land records, breakdown of franking machines and lack of working and reliable record management systems. To this end, it is evident that unless the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning addresses these challenges, this Ardhisasa digital platform that was implemented to simplify and ease the means of transacting with land, is actually an impediment to the access to justice.

Proposals for a Way Forward

Generally, the move to digital systems by the government should be applauded as it has made government processes simpler and quicker.

However, innovation should be frequently monitored to ensure that the government digitization program achieves its objectives.

Therefore, in fulfillment of its mandate under Section 6 of the Land Act No. 6 of 2012, the Ministry of Lands should:

1. Undertake a thorough audit of the Ardhisasa system to establish what works, what does not work and the remedial measures, if any should be undertaken. Relevant stakeholders should be included during this audit process to ensure transparency and accountability;
2. Update the Conversion Manual to make it understandable to the Common mwananchi;
3. Develop guidelines on registration of foreigners on the platform;
4. Align Ardhisasa with the electronic laws on how to manage the electronic execution and verification of instruments;
5. Allow adoption of advanced electronic signatures on Ardhisasa and alternatively, use Regulation 14(3) of The Land Registration (Electronic Transactions) Regulations 2020, to allow for manual execution and attestation where it is not legally possible to achieve an advanced electronic signature;
6. Extend time for compliance with the provisions of Section 13(2) of the Sectional Properties Act; and
7. Permit the use of the manual system until Titles are converted to the LRA Register and are ready for uploading to the Ardhisasa platform.

Implementation of the Ardhisasa system is a great move by the Ministry of Lands, as it has the potential to consolidate land processes and simplify the means of conducting land transactions. Once these highlighted challenges and hitches are addressed, the system will be able to simplify Kenyan citizens access to justice in the sphere of property ownership.

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