At a cost of Kshs 800 million (US$8m) Kenya could have its first geospatial data centre by June next year, to host land data and mapping information, according to Cabinet Secretary for Lands, Dr Jacob Kaimenyi.

Speaking at the recent State House Summit on lands, Dr Kaimenyi said that one of the key priority areas in his ministry would be the "development of geospatial data, processing, storage and dissemination of data on land."

"As of 2013 we had initiated the construction of a geo-spatial data centre. I am happy to announce that we have been able to complete the construction of this important centre. The centre is being equipped with the requisite tools at a cost of Kshs 69 million (US$690,000)," he reported.

"The other key priority area is the establishment of the Kenya National Spatial Data infrastructure so that we can interlink people and the data to manage land better," he added. The data infrastructure will be guided by the Kenya National Spatial Data policy which will also be unveiled by June next year.

Dr Kaimenyi added that the ministry's objective would be to digitise 18 land registries by June next year. Already the digitisation process has commenced on 13 land registries at a cost of Kshs 1.2 billion (US$12 million).

The cabinet secretary said that the Nairobi land registry is already complete for use. "Conducting searches which used to take three days, is now instant," he said. This means that more Kenyans will be able to do title deed searches through the eCitizen portal.

In addition, some of the digitisation projects are already being piloted including the national land information management system.

"What we have done in collaboration with the National Land Commission, we have been able to come up with the national land information management system (NLIMS) and it is being piloted with the intention of applying it nationally," Dr Kaimenyi said.

The Cabinet Secretary said that they are now issuing digital title deeds with special security features to prevent citizens from being defrauded in land deals.