Goat skin land titles: When shall we catch up?
My good friend Ian Muhereza must have smiled like a gibbon on reading a pronouncement by the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Gabindadde Musoke, that they were reverting to goat skin land titles. (The New Vision, March 17).
By Patrick Oyulu
My good friend Ian Muhereza must have smiled like a gibbon on reading a pronouncement by the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Gabindadde Musoke, that they were reverting to goat skin land titles. (The New Vision, March 17).
This after it turned out that more than 550 forged land titles have been discovered and some high level staff in the lands office were fired over alleged forgery of titles.
You see, Ian owns a goat farm in Mukono and this declaration would help him achieve his targets if his goat skins were processed to make parchment or vellum used for printing durable stuff like certificates, diplomas and titles.
It is not so much if Ian gets a market or not, it is about the medium the ministry is resorting to in this day and age.
See, there has been a lot of currency counterfeit stories in the past and present; but we have not resorted to cowry shells, have we?
Come on folks, when will we catch the wave? We are in an electronic security printing era, an era of the electronic tag, if you do not trust security features like water marks on paper.
Yes, vellum (goatskin parchment), for those who do not know, is a cured sheepskin or goatskin used as pages in medieval manuscripts. They are durable and that is why the Red Sea scrolls of Biblical times survived, and that is why the Ministry of Lands probably chose this option.
Goatskin has been used mainly in customised printing of certificates, diplomas and was the norm for all printing in the House of Lords in Britain until 1997, when it was stopped.
Well, enough gentle sarcasm. You see where I am going with this. And if you accept my premise, it all seems pretty cynical and even dismal. Sorry folks, but it gets worse.
People, we are going backwards in broad daylight, when we could have explored technologically foolproof alternatives. The reason we have an information technology ministry.
In an ideal situation, we expect the ICT ministry to help the lands office to put in place a lands records information system, a computer-based inventory, but we are seeing a return to the 1930s.
Well, it is laughable. It is not so much the durability for me, but the medium of choice.
Unless, of course, a compromise is made where an electronic tag is part of the goatskin title, a case of medieval meets modern, then perhaps that would just pass.
Whatever we do, if we don’t get an electronic filing system that retains maps, ownership transfers and other conveyances, agreements for sale, pending litigations, judgments, leases, releases of various interests, caveats and court orders, we shall continue to have loopholes, which fraudsters can manipulate.
Do we have in place a comprehensive land policy anyway? If we don’t, no amount of Angora goat skins can help.
The status quo is laden with fraudsters and lack of protection that can be combated by embracing an electronic land inventory.
Let the end product of the title type be secondary. Most importantly, let it not be goat skin.
If the paper they currently use for land titles is not foolproof, even if parchment is stronger and more durable, it is not the solution. As long as ownership issues, processes of acquisition and the land inventory is not made electronic and foolproof, the title, in whatever form, will not solve the problem.
I know we have goats here, and need market that of herders like Muhereza, but I am not sure if their skins are processed to print substrate levels, or if the decision to go vellum puts into consideration the source of supply as Uganda for the goats.
I wonder if the land office will have good archive facilities if they want to implement this goatskin theory because storing parchment is no easy task. For durability, you need good storage facilities.
Oh! they are also highly flammable, increasing the risks. Why don’t we just catch the wave and get electronic titles, small (in ATM card size), if the disruptive innovation of paper is not doing the trick?
If Capital Shoppers can afford to dish out electronically tagged shoppers cards, why can’t the lands office, with an electronic title tagged to computers that have all land info?
The world is in an era of the electronic tag as a security feature, while we are going back to goatskin that, trust me, won’t last in our poor conditions of storage.
Why does Uganda want to adopt an archaic goatskin title to administer its lands in the 21st century?
Like the traffic Police’s introduction of mandatory triangular reflectors allegedly created big business to a few big shots in the past, I pray that this scheme is not being introduced to create market to some goat herders. In which case, well, Muhereza have a blast, you have got market.
The writer is a media consultant
My good friend Ian Muhereza must have smiled like a gibbon on reading a pronouncement by the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Gabindadde Musoke, that they were reverting to goat skin land titles. (The New Vision, March 17).
This after it turned out that more than 550 forged land titles have been discovered and some high level staff in the lands office were fired over alleged forgery of titles.
You see, Ian owns a goat farm in Mukono and this declaration would help him achieve his targets if his goat skins were processed to make parchment or vellum used for printing durable stuff like certificates, diplomas and titles.
It is not so much if Ian gets a market or not, it is about the medium the ministry is resorting to in this day and age.
See, there has been a lot of currency counterfeit stories in the past and present; but we have not resorted to cowry shells, have we?
Come on folks, when will we catch the wave? We are in an electronic security printing era, an era of the electronic tag, if you do not trust security features like water marks on paper.
Yes, vellum (goatskin parchment), for those who do not know, is a cured sheepskin or goatskin used as pages in medieval manuscripts. They are durable and that is why the Red Sea scrolls of Biblical times survived, and that is why the Ministry of Lands probably chose this option.
Goatskin has been used mainly in customised printing of certificates, diplomas and was the norm for all printing in the House of Lords in Britain until 1997, when it was stopped.
Well, enough gentle sarcasm. You see where I am going with this. And if you accept my premise, it all seems pretty cynical and even dismal. Sorry folks, but it gets worse.
People, we are going backwards in broad daylight, when we could have explored technologically foolproof alternatives. The reason we have an information technology ministry.
In an ideal situation, we expect the ICT ministry to help the lands office to put in place a lands records information system, a computer-based inventory, but we are seeing a return to the 1930s.
Well, it is laughable. It is not so much the durability for me, but the medium of choice.
Unless, of course, a compromise is made where an electronic tag is part of the goatskin title, a case of medieval meets modern, then perhaps that would just pass.
Whatever we do, if we don’t get an electronic filing system that retains maps, ownership transfers and other conveyances, agreements for sale, pending litigations, judgments, leases, releases of various interests, caveats and court orders, we shall continue to have loopholes, which fraudsters can manipulate.
Do we have in place a comprehensive land policy anyway? If we don’t, no amount of Angora goat skins can help.
The status quo is laden with fraudsters and lack of protection that can be combated by embracing an electronic land inventory.
Let the end product of the title type be secondary. Most importantly, let it not be goat skin.
If the paper they currently use for land titles is not foolproof, even if parchment is stronger and more durable, it is not the solution. As long as ownership issues, processes of acquisition and the land inventory is not made electronic and foolproof, the title, in whatever form, will not solve the problem.
I know we have goats here, and need market that of herders like Muhereza, but I am not sure if their skins are processed to print substrate levels, or if the decision to go vellum puts into consideration the source of supply as Uganda for the goats.
I wonder if the land office will have good archive facilities if they want to implement this goatskin theory because storing parchment is no easy task. For durability, you need good storage facilities.
Oh! they are also highly flammable, increasing the risks. Why don’t we just catch the wave and get electronic titles, small (in ATM card size), if the disruptive innovation of paper is not doing the trick?
If Capital Shoppers can afford to dish out electronically tagged shoppers cards, why can’t the lands office, with an electronic title tagged to computers that have all land info?
The world is in an era of the electronic tag as a security feature, while we are going back to goatskin that, trust me, won’t last in our poor conditions of storage.
Why does Uganda want to adopt an archaic goatskin title to administer its lands in the 21st century?
Like the traffic Police’s introduction of mandatory triangular reflectors allegedly created big business to a few big shots in the past, I pray that this scheme is not being introduced to create market to some goat herders. In which case, well, Muhereza have a blast, you have got market.
The writer is a media consultant