Delayed transactions paralyse Lands
Sep 21, 2014
Complaints of the bureaucratic process at the lands ministry are far from over, New Vision has learnt.
By John Masaba
Complaints of the bureaucratic process at the lands ministry are far from over, New Vision has learnt.
People going to land offices across the country are encountering long waits before their applications can be worked on.
This is contrary to what the lands ministry promised in May last year when the computerised land registry system started. The new system was conducted by IGN, a French firm and it cost the Government $230m (sh598b).
After digitalising the registry, the public was promised shorter periods when processing land titles. The process was also intended to put an end to fraud.
The lands ministry clients’ charter book says it should take three working days to process a land title. But according to a client, the process takes more than a month and a half at the Kampala zonal land office at KCCA. An official in the lands ministry said the delays are created by faults in the computerised system.
The official said during the computerisation process, the physical paper land titles, most of them with writings barely visible, were scanned and stored electronically.
However, soon after the process was completed, the ministry discovered several hitches in the electronically captured copies.
The lands ministry spokesperson, Denis Obo, said: “Before opening the lands office, the registrar of titles was by law supposed to sample a few copies to establish if the registry was error free.”
He said when they sampled about 100 copies, they discovered that the copies had many problems. “In some copies, the scanning was not complete.
For example, in Masaka, we found that about 1,500 title owners were not paying stamp duty, while in other cases, elements like box numbers and signatures of the land sellers were missing.
We have decided to call these people to come and correct these entries,” he said. He said the ministry had decided to revisit all the copies.
An official who preferred anonymity said a total of 492,000 land title records have been converted into digital copies.
He said 16,509 cadastral map sheets and 5,843 maps, covering the pilot area (Bugiri) are being verified. He said the process of verifying the copies will go on until the end of this year.
However, Obo insists the process will be completed by the end of the month. Chaos at lands When Saturday Vision visited the KCCA lands office at City Hall, the entrance to the office was crowded with people waiting to complete land transactions. KCCA has even made tarpaulin shades outside the office.
When Thomas Lubega submitted his application at KCCA, he was told that his request would be completed within a week.
However, two months later, the transaction is yet to be completed. He said he applied to KCCA to waive a caveat on his land in Lukuli after completing a loan payment to Centenary Bank.
“I had prepared papers to lodge a tender using the land a security. However, I lost out because the process could not be completed in time,” he said.
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