Lands Department goes online

By GLORIA BAUAI
The Department of Lands and Physical Planning is switching electronically in its steps to bring confidence to players in the property sector.
Department of Lands and Physical Planning secretary Benjamin Samson said the department had started with an online payments system called e-lands.
Samson said the biggest move will be to use strata titles under the recently passed land registration strata title law.
“In the next three years or so, we should have electronic titles in this country because manual titles are easy for manipulation and fraud,” he said.
“The online payment system is the first part of our process we’re implementing.
“Other processes to come online in the next year and a half are our title search, title processing, land allocation and all business processes.
“Currently we have a system called property and ranking but we’re now in the process of having that perfected and uploaded onto the e-lands system.”
Samson said the online system so far had generated an increased revenue of about 60 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
“Last year, we collected about K2 million in the first quarter and this year we’re over K11 million in first quarter alone,” he said.
Samson said the strata title law would add onto this confidence while resolving some of the country’s chronic social-economic problems.
He said the law paved way for affordable housing for Papua New Guineans in all levels, increasing investment in the sector and improving the country’s revenue generation.
“I’m doing this to give confidence to my stakeholders because you (stakeholders) will develop the sector, not the Government,” he said.
“It requires all of us to work together.”