Kenya’s Lands Cabinet Secretary Faridah Karoney is once again amongst the trending topics on the internet.
And to the thirsty Team Mafisi who rushed to this post fully armed with their jars of Arimis, I have to deliver the bad news that, unlike the last time her name was all over Nairobi tabloids, it is not her nudes that have been leaked again.
This time around, it’s just another sad case of just how tragic some political appointments can turn out to be.
In a viral video clip now doing rounds on social media, Karoney exposed her obvious lack of expertise or experience in the field of Lands when she almost spoke in tongues while attempting to explain how leases and sectional titles work.
Speaking to a journalist from The Star newspaper, Karoney claimed that prior to the enforcement of the new laws, developers could use the mother title as security in a bank despite them having registered a sublease on the same piece of land.
“Prior to the enforcement of the Section Properties Act of 2020, the developer used to have the mother title. They would sell you the apartment using something we call a long term lease. It means it is a lease on another title. So I [Karoney] have the mother title and give you a long term lease,” she began telling the journalist.
“Now what is the danger of that?” she proceeded, “Because I have the mother title, I can go to the bank and take a loan. You have the apartment and you think you own it but I have taken a loan on the base title.
“By default, what happens? You cannot hold your apartment and the whole place will be sold,” she explained.
Lands CS is exposing ignorance on technical issues and thus misleading Kenyans. She has no idea how leases and sectional titles work. And she is in charge of the Ministry of Lands. Oooh my God pic.twitter.com/7Tq19DxfB8
— Caxstone P. Kigata (@CaxstonePKigata) May 10, 2021
But according to specialists and lawyers who were quick to point out that once a sublease is registered, a bank cannot take the mother title as security and is thus registered as an encumbrance.
And when the head title is charged, Lessees of a fully-paid unit are entitled to a partial discharge which is registered against the Head Title.
“The Lessee’s right is not defeated by the fact of default of the Developer,” noted one lawyer.
Under the replies section, netizens continued to struggle to come to terms with the shock of just how deep incompetence is rooted in Uhuru Kenyatta’s regime.
“This is an indication to show Kenyans the incompetence in Jubilee government in different ministries held by people who have no idea what they are doing there,” wrote one Kenyan, followed by many others who also expressed their disappointment over the current state of affairs in the Lands docket.
This woman Karoney
CS Faridah Karoney was nominated by President Uhuru Kenyatta as Cabinet Secretary for Lands, on 26 January 2018.
This was immediately after she left her position as the chief operating officer (COO) of the Royal Media Services (RMS), a media conglomerate that includes radio and television stations.
Before that, she served as the Group Editorial Director at RMS.
