The decision by Lands minister, James Orengo, to withdraw the new and controversial fees at the land registry to allow stakeholder consultations is welcome. It is the boldest move by a minister in recent times to accept to climb down for the sake of public good.

Sadly, this move also represents the minefield that is haphazard pronouncement of policies by ministers, often to gain political mileage.

When he revised the fees, Mr Orengo had stated that the move was aimed at clearing Ardhi House of speculators and hundreds of brokers who filled its corridors searching for files on lands whose ownership is unclear.

For this reason, the minister increased the search fee from Sh100 to Sh3,000, while other fees jumped 10-fold, sparking an uproar from stakeholders.

All this amounted to punishing those who genuinely want to transact business using land, in a bid to tame land brokers and errant ministry officials. It was uncalled for.

What the minister should have done is to look at the root of the problem so as to deal with it. In fact, the jury is still out as to whether the hefty fees would have curbed corruption at Ardhi House.

Mr Orengo maintains that the fees at current rates, are too low. We believe that the only justification to such an increment would be better service delivery. Had the minister promised and actually delivered better services, there can be no doubt that Kenyans would be willing to pay more.

As it were, his order meant that one would for example pay Sh3,000 search fee and get the results three weeks later.

Besides, Mr Orengo's climb down raises the more pertinent question as to how the idea was arrived at in the first place. Did he consult the stakeholders and relevant public officials before gazetting the new fees?

Such a policy change could simply not have happened without discussions at the ministry or in the Cabinet.

Normally, ministers gazette what they have been given by the Permanent Secretaries and we are left wondering why the top officials at the ministry failed to offer expert advice on such an important matter.

Our hope is that the minister will use this grace period to reflect on how best to clean the mess at Ardhi House. He, with the help of stakeholders, must find ways to end the operation of cartels at Ardhi House and make services offered by the department more affordable.

The most basic thing to do is to computerise the systems and increase the level of transparency in land transactions.

The ministry must also demystify land ownership in Kenya and let all people understand the different regulations in our law books.

While the ministry must generate funds internally, it should first eliminate the red tape which makes simple land conveyance a process lasting eons, thus forcing people to seek short cuts.

The adjustment of fees alone will not improve the services - which is all that the public want from this office.

For many years, Ardhi House had been the den of corruption and we are not surprised that the minister admits that there are more than 20,000 fake land allotment letters out there, processed by government officials and conmen.

Some banks may also be holding fake title deeds as collateral. As we have seen, in Kenya land is an emotive issue and informs both our social and political fabric.

We still believe that Orengo has a vision and a passion for the right thing as well as the courage to listen to others. If he can improve services at the ministry, Kenyans will pay for it. But nobody will pay for poor services. Not today.