We perhaps have read newspapers or case law about the numerous court cases and land transactions that collapse since property sellers and buyers ignored these low level organs called land control boards. They regulate all transactions on agricultural land, be it in the urban or rural areas. They are manned by men and women we hardly ever pay heed to. Big mistake! Every one of us keen on investing on land categorized as agricultural or the developments thereon must begin to take interest in them.

Land control boards, whose members are appointed by the Lands Cabinet Secretary, are established under the Land Control Act of 1967 for controlling transactions on agricultural land. Only the President of the Republic of Kenya has the power and discretion to exempt a transaction on agricultural land from obtaining consent from land control boards. From practical experience, few cases ever enjoy this privilege. It’s usually accorded to transactions of great public or state interest.

Scope of Land Control Boards

Land control boards should serve the purpose of enabling the public to move transactions relating to the sale, transfer, lease, mortgage, exchange, partitioning or any other kind of dealing with agricultural land within their jurisdiction. They approve or reject subdivision requests on agricultural land too. Land control boards are also vested with the powers to approve transactions such as sale, transfer or mortgage of shares in private companies or cooperative societies that own agricultural land since the transactions do have implications to the holding of such land. Where the land control board is convinced that a transaction is sound and should be allowed, it issues the applicant with a letter of consent. This is the only legal instrument recognized by land practitioners, land registrars and even the courts for purposes of dealing with or registering interests on agricultural land. The Land Control Act contains prescribed standard forms for the application of consent from the land control board and the letter of consent to be issued once the land board approves a transaction. This standard stationery is provided by the Lands Ministry through the County Land Registries, formerly the District Land Registries. In the event that a transaction is rejected by a land board, applicants can appeal to a higher level organ provided for in the Act.

Boards can detect and stop fraudulent deals, arrest fragmentation

Because their membership includes local residents, land control boards can easily detect fraudulent deals where unscrupulous land dealers may purport to deal with land they do not own and also in cases where the estates of deceased persons are under distribution. And because they consider applications for subdivisions of agricultural land, the boards are very well placed to regulate its fragmentation to uneconomic units. So the Chairs of these boards, who are the Sub-county Deputy County Commissioners, formerly District Commissioners or, where delegated to, the Assistant County Commissioners, formerly District Officers, should take board business very seriously. There’s need to ensure thorough scrutiny of the applicants, their relationships to the subject land and the overall implications to the social-economic order within a jurisdiction.

The board chairs and members must view the boards as a major national responsibility, and not an opportunity. They must address the associated routine complaints which include lateness, postponement of meetings, lack of the standard stationery, special sittings and rent seeking. There are also complaints that the letters of consents aren’t promptly released in some places, hence delaying transactions with major implications to business or social arrangements. There are complaints too that some board members double as brokers and have been found in land registries pushing the very transactions that they approved in their boards. These are mundane issues that can be easily managed if board chairs are sufficiently vigilant.

Boards must be well facilitated

On the other hand, the land board boards have legitimate complaints. They for instance feel unfairly blamed for cases of unavailable stationery since this is the responsibility of the line Ministry of Lands. They also complain of perpetual delays in the payment of their sitting allowances. They recently added to this the beef that the allowances haven’t been increased following the public announcement made by the Cabinet Secretary last year to the effect that their sitting and travel allowances had been increased. The respective desk officers in the Lands Ministry should be able to easily deal with these mundane concerns on availability of stationery and allowances in order to ensure uninterrupted services and revenue generation. It will also improve member morale. The Ministry may also need to consider organising induction for board members appointed last year. They will appreciate the legal and professional perspectives behind their roles a lot better.

It is also important for the government to explore how the boards can effectively regulate the excessive fragmentation of agricultural land. This is not easy at all since there are major social-economic considerations that must be kept in mind. For instance population pressure, cultural inheritance norms and the sales of small portions of land to mitigate pressing education and health cash demands pose challenges. Boards should be given some capacity to navigate around this matter.

Dated 1^st September, 2018