Holness commits $1 billion in next Budget for land titling programme
Published:Thursday | November 23, 2023 | 12:10 AM
In a bid to formalise more than 350,000 unregistered parcels of land with an estimated value of $200 billion on the valuation roll in Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced a significant move by the government towards land titling.
Addressing a National Land Agency (NLA) Systematic Land Registration land titling ceremony in Bog Walk, St Catherine on Tuesday, Holness emphasised the importance of land titling for national development and announced that the government would allocate $1 billion in the next Budget for land titling efforts under the programme.
“What we are doing is to establish ownership in a formal way, using the Systematic Registration of Titles,” Holness underscored.
According to the prime minister, this allocation will form part of financing the ongoing Systematic Registration of Titles spearheaded by the NLA.
Holness sought to clarify that the funding was in addition to the $1 billion already allocated by the National Housing Trust (NHT) to complete the registration process for 12,000 titles in Manchester, St Elizabeth, and St Catherine by 2025. Of these, 9,000 titles have already been distributed.
Holness, in the meantime, criticised the previous “ad hoc approach”, stating that waiting for property owners to voluntarily register their land was a slow process. Instead, the government will declare systematic areas for land registration and finance the process, building on work initiated by previous administrations through the Land Administration and Management Programme (LAMP).
The prime minister took the opportunity to criticise the opposition People’s National Party, accusing it of making promises without delivering tangible results.
“I am sure you would have heard many populous speeches before: ‘We are going to give everybody land’, and nothing gets done. The key, from my presentation, is that we are a government who gets things done,” Holness declared.
A total of 112 property owners in St Catherine received registered titles at the presentation ceremony. This marked the fourth land titling presentation in this phase since the programme’s launch in 2021, and the second in St Catherine.
Natalie Neita Garvey, member of parliament for St Catherine North Central, commended the NLA for its achievements but urged the agency to expedite the process.
Neita Garvey identified four additional communities in St Catherine North Central that she wants included in the initiative.
According to Holness, the NLA has already begun developing the technical expertise and institutional knowledge to manage this wide-ranging programme.