Govt to pay K1.8m debt to restart lands dept project

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The Government, through its supplementary budget, will pay a K1.8 million outstanding debt to Australian software company TechnologyOne Ltd to resume the Land and Geographical Information System (Lagis) project.
Lands and Physical Planning Minster Justin Tkatchenko said Lagis was an important programme that had been delayed for more than four years due to outstanding bills.
He said parliament passed the supplementary budget last week in which the Lagis project was included.
“With that funding, it will free up the debt that has been created over the last four years and will now allow us to open up the land enhancement application programme (LEaP),” he said.
“This will start the process of ensuring that we have information ready to roll out as soon as possible and get that computer system up and running so we can register all our land documents, our land titles and all our surveys. Anything to do with our land titles will all be scanned, documented and put into the system.
“It will take till the end of the year to get the system running.
“I’m very appreciative of the foresight and the understanding of the Treasurer Charles Abel and Prime Minister Peter O’Neill in putting in the K1.8 million to resolve a long outstanding issue.
“It’s called getting on with the job and getting things done.”
Tkatchenko said an annual fee of K1 million would be maintained in the Lands Department as recurrent budget every year.
He said the department would have to follow up and ensure that payment was made for the project to resume.
“Now that parliament has approved the supplementary budget, it’s for the Lands Department, with the State Solicitor’s clearance, to have the debt cleared and confirmed the correct amount and Treasury would pay.
“The funding is to maintain the system to provide the software and updates and the appropriate programmes and information, and to be on call to service the system.”
Tkatchenko said the original cost was about K3.2 million but they had negotiated to reduce it because the system had been off for the past four years.
“Once the system comes back on, a refresher course would be conducted for all staff involved in the project,” he said.
“It’s a big system which will take a lot of data, with the entry of lot of programmes that requires memory. That’s why the cost is high.
“That will ensure that the public has access to electronic copies of their titles and information. Everything will be cleared on electronic file.”