KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Daryl Vaz, says a study is being undertaken for the implementation of an electronic titling system by the National Land Agency (NLA).

The study is being done with the assistance of the World Bank.

It will involve a tour of Land Information New Zealand by a team from the NLA, Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), and the World Bank; workshops in Jamaica to advance the reform of the titles system; and consultations with various stakeholders.

New Zealand ranks number one for registering property in the World Bank Doing Business Report. The country utilises the Torrens Title system, which is also used in Jamaica.Torrens Title is a South Australian invention that revolutionised the method of recording and registering landownership. It is a system where landownership occurs when the document that transfers ownership of the property is filed at the local Land Titles Office. The purpose of the Torrens system is to provide certainty of title to land.Vaz, who was making his contribution to the 2017/18 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, said the Government intends to improve land titling as a means of creating employment and an environment for greater access to finance.He said the Administration recognises that it has to adopt new approaches to make the titling process easier by reducing the number of steps and, at the same time, making it more affordable to obtain a land title.“We plan to achieve this by adopting a simple, transparent and participatory community-based approach to adjudication in order to establish landownership. This type of approach has been used successfully in various countries worldwide to carry out rapid land titling and as a way to reduce the cost and time for formalising landownership,” he pointed out.He said this new approach will be incorporated in the institutional changes to be implemented under the merger of the Land Administration and Management Programme (LAMP) with the NLA, which is being spearheaded by a Consultant, who has already started work.The merger will streamline and re-engineer the titling business process, making it more efficient while improving accountability.He noted, further, that recommendations will be made for required amendments to the Regulations of the Special Provisions Act that will strengthen and enhance the operations of the LAMP adjudication committees.“We currently have 16 LAMP adjudication committees across the parishes, and they will come under the new framework, thereby making them more effective in performing their duties to resolve landownership and facilitating the issuing of more land titles,” he said.This will be supported with the use of modern digital land-mapping technology to make the process as efficient as possible.Vaz further informed the House that the Ministry is considering a proposal, on a public-private partnership basis, to secure financing to carry out the mapping of lands, which will update the digital cadastral index.He said this programme will be geared towards the formalisation of various settlements islandwide.