An Evaluation of Land Tenure and Registration Process in Maua Location, Meru North District of Kenya

Abstract

This research paper evaluates land tenure and land registration process in Maua Location of Meru North district of Kenya. It comes at a time when Kenyans are pressurizing the government increasingly to issue title deeds not only at the Coast province but also all over the country (GoK -Ministry of Lands). Maua Location is of concern owing to the fact that the land registration process has been on going since 1966. This is a long time (43 years) for the land registration process not to have been completed, hence the researcher's interest in the location. Other regions of the country where land registration has taken long include the Coastal region of Kenya, the Rift Valley and Nyanza provinces as opposed to central and western provinces where this delay was not experienced as it was done immediately after independence. (From 1994 to 1997, the Location has been subdivided into six locations, thus; Antobochiu-1994, Luluma-1997, Kithetu-1997, Miori-1997, Nguyuyu-1994 and Maua-1994). For purposes of this research, all these locations are combined into one and referred to as Maua Location (See figure 4). Landowners have not yet received their title deeds and this delay has occasioned economic, social, political, and environmental problems. This study examines the different factors that have affected the land registration process such as politics and governance, contradictory policies and institutional framework. Study objectives are identification of relationships between current land policies and the pace of land registration, determination of whether the current land dispute resolution p methods are related to incidences of land cases and identification of the relationship(s) between land subdivision and environmental degradation in the Location. The study shows how introduction of modern land dispute resolution methods as opposed to traditional methods has impacted on the land registration process. This research examines the environmental parameters associated with land registration in Maua Location, and then offers solutions and recommendations to policy makers and others on how to address the issues resu-.lting from land registration in the location. The study consists of five chapters. The background in Chapter 1 is on various legislations that were introduced by the colonial administration (to replace customary land tenure) v and adopted at independence for land registration and their various shortcomings. The chapter contains Statement of the research problem, justification of the research, literature review, and objectives of the study, the hypotheses and the conceptual framework. The scope and limitations of the study is also contained in this chapter. Climate and topography, population, temperature, resource potential, vegetation, winds and relative humidity of the study area are addressed in Chapter 2. The methodology in Chapter 3 included Stratified random sampling and direct observations. Data was from both primary and secondary sources; and was of quantitative nature. Structured questionnaires were administered to the different respondents and focused group discussions were held. On the other hand, specific quantitative techniques of data analysis using SPSS such as Cross Tabulation and the non- parametric Chi- square (X2) test were used. The contributions of this research are highlighted in the findings which are presented in graphs, tables and pie .charts. In conclusion in Chapter 5, the study shows that conflicts resulting from institutions dealing with land matters are resolvable in nature with a positive effect on the pace of land registration and modern methods of dispute resolution leading to high incidences of land disputes. The pace of land registration also affects environmental conservation; registered land owners want to protect their land from natural and artificial disasters and politicians tend to cause delays in land registration.