Land board, titles should be separate: Allan

The powers of the National Capital District land board should be kept separate to avoid confusion in procedures concerning land titles in the city, Lands Minister Benny Allan says.
Reacting to a call by NCD Governor Powes Parkop in an article published in The National last Friday,  Allan said that the powers of the land board should be given to NCD Physical Planning Board.
However, he said the time was not right just yet to relinquish those powers to the city government.
Allan said the Land Act 1996 provided for the delegation of powers vested in the minister to provinces.
“We have established provincial land boards, and physical planning boards for 14 provinces that have requested for those powers to be handed down.
“In NCD, we have given them the physical planning board but have held back the land board. This is because it has become obvious that some of the things done seem inconsistent with the national physical planning act,” Allan said.
He said there were many complaints from applicants because the NCD physical planning board failed to meet regularly.  And when they met, there was usually no quorum to attend to grievances over delays in the application process.
Allan said a physical planning board should not be chaired by a politician as in the case of NCD.