Land Owners in St. Elizabeth to Benefit from Lamp

Landowners in St. Elizabeth will soon benefit from the Land Administration and Management Programme (LAMP), when the pilot programme in St. Catherine comes to an end next year.
“LAMP represents an ideal that can be replicated in other areas and as such a project of this nature will have longstanding impact and range,” Lisa Campbell, Legal Officer at LAMP told JIS News.
The Government, in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), provides funding for LAMP at a cost of US$12 million. The programme is slated to come to an end in April 2006.
According to Miss Campbell, there were plans to continue the “revolutionary” programme.”LAMP and its methodology is revolutionary, in terms of the way in which we are supporting land tenure and sorting out problems relating to land,” she explained.
The programme, which came out of recommendations from the National Land Policy in the Ministry of Land and Environment, seeks to create a dynamic land market, so that land as an asset can be used in a viable way.Miss Campbell told JIS News that south west St. Elizabeth was being contemplated, as LAMP administrators were looking to work in areas where complementary projects were in progress.
For example, she said that south west St. Elizabeth will see a project by the National Irrigation Commission, “where we are going to be helping farmers to sort out matters relating to titles, so that they can access grants and loans, in order to improve the water situation and as such, have viable farms”.
Miss Campbell pointed out that persons who were benefiting from the programme were paying for their titles, and that their contributions would form the basis of funds to continue the programme.
“They are giving a contribution in relation to actual cost and this will go towards a fund that will be used as the base for the continuation of the programme,” she informed.
LAMP is expected to change the mindset of landowners who will now understand that land is an asset and that they are now in a position to benefit from such services as loans.
“We recognise that our economy could grow leaps and bounds if persons have this asset. For example, one likely spin-off would be an expansion of the construction industry,” she said.
LAMP was originally conceptualised to map and sort out tenure information for 30,000 parcels in St. Catherine. It is hoped that this pilot programme will provide lessons in moving forward into other parts of the island.