Government wants to Create ‘Ownership Society’ through LAMP

Minister of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change, Hon. Robert Pickersgill, says the Government is dedicated to creating an “ownership society,” where individuals can formalise their land tenure, through its Land Administration and Management Programme (LAMP).

"We will use LAMP as far as we can to address titling for (those) land settlement beneficiaries who have been waiting for too long to receive their titles. LAMP has been preaching to every land owner who has no title, to use the services of LAMP to secure a title,” the Minister said,during his contribution to the 2012/13 Sectoral Debate in Gordon House, on July 24.

LAMP, which seeks to regularise land ownership across the island, began as a pilot project in St. Catherine in April 2000 through funding from the Government of Jamaica and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and has been expanded to cover all parishes, except Kingston, St. Andrew, Portmore and its environs.

The Minister said the Government is also exploring the feasibility of declaring parts of rural St. Andrew as project areas, “as I gather that many land owners have been approaching LAMP for its service and our objective is to assist them."

In the meantime, Mr. Pickersgill informed that as part of efforts to expand its services, the Government, through LAMP, had entered into a public/private partnership for a privately financed expansion programme with a South Korean Company, the Korea Cadastral Survey Corporation (KCSC) and Geoland Title Limited, a Jamaican Project Management Company. 

"KCSC invested the amount of just over US$2 million to privately finance the venture, with the expectation that they would recover cost if they were able to undertake at least 12,500 applications for titles. Although the results thus far are below expectation, the project will nonetheless be continued,” he informed.