04 Sep 2016

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands and Housing, Mr Thato Raphaka has encouraged plot owners to register their plots within the timeframe to secure their land rights.

A press release from Ministry of Lands and Housing states that the on-going national land registration project that was rolled out through land boards in 2013 through land boards and will end in December 2016.

“Let us all register our plots. This will go a long way in ensuring security to our land,” advises Mr Raphaka in the release.

The aim of the land registration project is to improve efficiency, effectiveness and transparency in land administration in the country.

The project began in 2009 on a pilot basis in Matebeleng and was later rolled out to the entire country, as part of a wider Land Administration, Processes, Capacity and Systems (LAPCAS) project.

The LAPCAS project has several components, which include the development of a new unique plot numbering system to facilitate a land information system.

It also includes national land registration exercise to clearly capture information on who owns what piece of land and where in order to improve record management at land authorities and system of location address to be used in different settlements in the country.

The release further states that the ministry is surveying all land parcels in the country at no cost to the land owners and those who would have missed the deadline would have to bear the costs of the registration including survey costs.

At the end of the project, as per the release, a new land certificate with security features will be issued and the current certificate will ultimately seize to be used.

“This project will fundamentally improve the way we serve Batswana as a ministry and it will indeed improve service delivery across government,” states Raphaka in the statement.

It also explains that through the national land registration component, government wants land boards to know which land has been allocated, to whom it has been allocated to and for what purposes, so that land that has not been allocated can be identified for future allocations.

“The project clearly captures information on who owns what piece of land and where in order to improve record management at land authorities and the project was set up to improve land management in the country.”  ENDS