Budget Speech: Prime Minister hails turnaround at Lands Department

By Aaron Humes: From the self-acknowledged “hotbed of corruption” as it was infamously titled by former Prime Minister Dean Barrow, the Lands Department has achieved a “remarkable turnaround” according to successor John Briceño.

The provision of land – whether for housing, farming, or other purposes – is a critical component of the ruling party’s #planbelize agenda, and the Prime Minister announced that “as we speak, 10,000 lots are being surveyed all over the country so that we can reach first-time land owners as well as more public officers, teachers and nurses, and members of our police and security forces.”

Backlogged instruments were reduced from more than 20 thousand to 2,687, including 9,860 instruments in the soon-ending fiscal year.

The National Estate section has produced about 10 thousand lease approvals, purchase approvals, grants, and land certificates in the past year.

Special mobile “land clinics” were hailed by the Prime Minister as critical to eradicating the backlogs at the Ministry, held at an average of one every 2 ½ weeks for 22 in total, counting public and internal clinics.

A special ongoing land clinic for the Land Registry has so far completed 2,500 land certificates and titles, halving the backlog there and adding to the more than 14 thousand land certificates, deeds, and transfer certificates of titles completed in the past year.

“All these efforts, the reduction of the backlogs at National Estate from 20,000 to under 3,000, and the halving of the Land Registry backlogs from 5,000 to 2,500 will allow the Ministry to get current – to now ensure that the wait time for lease approvals, and purchase approvals, and land certificates and land transfers are cut down considerably,” the P.M. said.

Receiving special focus is what the Prime Minister called the “Super Constituencies – the teachers, nurses, police officers, public officers, and Belize Defence Force soldiers” which have received collectively more than one thousand purchase approvals and titles – and “in this coming financial year we will do even more!” he promised.

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