Good Day! It is with relief that we welcome the New Land Policy..since as we know land is a very emotive and sensitive issue in Kenya. But even as we are ready do celebrate this new policy which is yet to be discussed in parliament,am sceptical since I have not seen anyway the ministry getting views from the techies the ICT people. You cannot have a land policy without a comprehensive Land Information Systems (LIS) and this is where the good people on the skunkworks can help. Allow me to indulge a little,to explain the problem with the present land ownership scenerio and how they can be solved with an LIS. 1.Legality vs Legitimacy:The present law in Kenya,only looks at the Legality (owning a title deed),whereas it should also look at the legitimacy.For example a person with a title deed,for a land in Mau Forest or Wetland might have a legal document to own that land.But does not have the legitimacy of owning it because it is water catchment area or wetland or school compound.Now with a LIS all land will be document and the information available on a website (with maps).The land will be marked accordingly e.g Wetland,Water Catchment,agricultural land,forest land,road reserve,Industrial development land ,public land and Private Property will also have the lease period and the details of the owner.So in future we will not have a situation where a person buys a land in a water catchment area then asks for compensation.Secondly it will sensitize people when they see people doing funny activities on land that is earmarked for special common good.Even if they go ahead and acquire such land the title can be revoked due to the legitimacy angle.At the moment the Title deed is everything,people can even forge your title deed and once they have it ,its a legal nightmare.Legitimacy issues can also arise when for example a runaway husband sales land that belongs to the family. 2.Ownership Vs Access: The present law in Kenya,give primacy to ownership,but it should also look at access to land.It is alright that you own the land,but is it accessible.What is the point of someone owning 10 of thousands of land while there are squatters as his neighbors.This person should make the land accessible by at least subletting it so that people can at least grow crops.Another example,the somalis can buy the whole of eastleigh if they want...so long as they put the land into projects which will be accessible to all people in terms of shopping mall etc.Tied with the first point then when someone buys land he will be required to state the his intentions.So that we dont have large tracks of land sitting idle.The LIS will make it easier to manage how accessible land is.In all we should have situations where by you can be without land,but you are not landless. Additional Features for the LIS .Search Capabilities.(by function,by person,by institutions,by title number,by unused lands,lease,by location,for sale) .Ability to Pay land rates using mobile payments .Ability to pay tax on land by the amount of acarage etc .Maps Without a transparent LIS then whatever land policy we have is bound to fail. I heard one day...the Lands Minister saying that they require 2 billion to digitize the records.Am sure if we look for a home grown solution most people on this list e.g Alliance Technologies can make such solutions for much less.Secondly isn't that an opportunity for our budding BPOs.?????? NB:Anyway my advise for young people,think about the cyberspace forget land. A good website with monitized content,can cost you less than 200-500k and you can make 200k monthly. A plot in a place in eastlands (forget prime land) will cost you 500K-1million.....then developing it for low income houses will cost you another 4-7 million.Then make what? 70 -100k a month? its not worth it. So lets see guys fighting for cyberspace,lets see more .co.ke website,lets see more local content.Lets see more webprenuers,lets see more solutions,lets see more people leaving their comfortable zones in jobs as sys admins,network admins and all those fancy titles and see guys making really solutions for smes,for government,for homes etc.Lets use ICT to solve agenda 4 ISSUES and 5 and 6 OR ANY OTHER ISSUES whatever the number.