The National Lands Commission (NLC) wants a Sh1.3billion addition in the supplementary budget warning that critical services such as digitisation of land records risk being affected.
Appearing before the National Assembly Committee on lands yesterday, NLC chairman Gershom Otachi said that the commission will be forced to scale down a number of core services due to massive budget cuts.
He told lawmakers that NLC had already advertised for a tender to upgrade its ICT infrastructure in order to link its headquarters in Nairobi with the ones in the county to minimize physical visits but the activity is now at risk.
“The commission will not be able to purchase ICT networking, communication equipment and software earmarked for this financial year 2022/2023. NLC had advertised a tender on upgrading of computer infrastructure and service level agreement that is ongoing and is earmarked for payment in November,” he told the MPs.
“ICT networking is very key in the land sector reforms since NLC had planned to connect its county offices to improve its service delivery,” he added.
He also said that the NLC’s budget was cut by Sh146million following President William Ruto’s directives to reduce the overall budget for the current financial year by Sh300billion.
Issuance of allotment letters to public institutions from the current 2,800 to 2,000 annually, titling and movement of land administration officers to offices and schools across the country are among the services that the commission will scale down.
Management of information on public lands and payment of gazette notices for compulsory land acquisitions will also be affected by the budget.
“These activities are information oriented and without funds for site inspections and public engagement forums, the planned activities will be untenable,” he said.
NLC said the budget cut will also hamper research, feasibility studies, project preparation and design and project supervision.
“Many of the earmarked research activities will not be done based on the planned work plans, hence jeopardizing land research based activities,” he said.
The Lands committee will present the NLC’s requests to the Budget and Appropriation Committee to justify the Sh1.3billion before the House approves the final supplementary budget.
