20 Nov 2023

The number of applicants for Secure Land Title in the Bobonong Sub-land Board area of jurisdiction is 17 618.

Responding to a question from MP for Bobonong, Mr Taolo Lucas in Parliament on November 16, Minister of Lands and Water Affairs, Dr Kefentse Mzwinila said 12 156 of applications were for built-up areas while 5 462 were for Agricultural uses.

Minister Mzwinila said the delay in processing the Secure Land Title (SLT) was attributed to long queues at examination, approval and loading stages of survey diagrams at the Department of Surveys and Mapping. He said another reason was the SLT files with incomplete documents required for conveyancing and the unstable and low network connectivity.

He said one of the contributing factors was the delay in cleaning of waiting list applications.

This also included the processing of SLT involved workflows between different departments among them, Department of Surveys and Mapping, Deeds Registration and land boards as well as varying systems and laws.

The Minister said as a new project, the issuance of SLT involved change management to help achieve by-in and mindset change.

He said the delay was also caused by difficulty in tracking applicants whose plots were allocated a long time back.

Minister Mzwinila acknowledged possible inconveniences arising from the delay in the processing of SLT, which included delays in processing of mortgage loans, businesses and other investments.

He said another inconvenience was loss of economic opportunities and social upliftment.

He further said there also was inconvenience in beneficiation from government programmes.

The Minister said regarding service standards for the delivery of SLT for persons who applied in the first invitation of applications, the Ministry was currently working around re-engineering of business processes to come up with new standards.

However, he said after printing of the SLT the service standard for issuance was five days.

Mr Lucas had wanted the minister to state the number of applicants for SLT in respect of residential plots and ploughing fields as well as possible inconveniences arising from the delay in the processing of SLT. ENDS