01 Dec 2015

The Land Administration Procedures, Capacity and Systems (LAPCAS) Programme covers broad areas like land administration processes, computerisation of land records, land registration and capacity building.  

Responding to a Parliamentary question, the Minister of Lands and Housing Mr Prince Maele said as part of its implementation, capturing of all surveyed plots into the cadastral database and upgrading of cadastral information system to incorporate new plot numbers and location addresses was ongoing. 

He said 2 500 survey records have been captured into the cadastral data base. 

Minister Maele said location addressing, which includes street naming, housing numbering and postal coding was ongoing with location addresses having been introduced in Gaborone Blocks 7 and 8, Tshane and Matsiloje villages. 

“Improvement of land administration processes is implemented through standardisation of land administration processes, review of organisational structure, legislative review, decentralisation of land management function and change functions,” he said. 

He said 18 land administration processes have been standardised and are being implemented across all Land Boards and the review of the ministry organisational structure has been approved by government. 

Legal review was also ongoing through proposals for amendments of Deeds Registry Act and consolidation and harmonisation of land related legislation, processing of common law and borehole applications have been decentralised to Sub Land Boards, change management strategy has been developed and was being implemented and mainstreamed into the activities of the ministry. 

He said land registration was continuing through surveying, verification and registration of all plots in tribal areas. 

The minister said 290 166 plots have been surveyed, 68 299 plots have ownership details verified. 

He said his ministry was also developing an integrated Land Information System with a view to integrate land delivery processes. 

This system would also be interfaced with other systems such as National Identification System, he said. 

Mr Maele said the development of the system was ongoing with the first two of seven modules expected to be completed by March 2016. 

He said his ministry through LAPCAS was establishing a National Spatial Data Infrastructure for the country and a Land Information Centre. 

“A data sharing policy and data exchange standards are being developed and collection of metadata is ongoing. 

Proposals for the establishment of Land Information Centre have been completed and the structure approved for implementation,” he said. 

Minister Maele said capacity building initiatives were undertaken in conjunction with the University of Botswana. 

Diploma and Degree course in land management, certificate course in land management and various short courses have been developed and conducted. 

The minister said 764 officers have received in service training. 

He said at the end of the LAPCAS Programme, vacant land would be identified and made available for allocation. 

Systems would also be available to improve land management, service delivery, access to land and security of tenure for all citizens, he said. 

Ramotswa MP Mr Samuel Rantuana had asked the minister to update parliament on the status of LAPCAS.  Ends