…”after years of corruption under PPP”

By Lisa Hamilton

THE Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC) is working around the clock to rebuild public trust in the work of the Commission, after years of corruption inherited from the former administration.

“We are not into giving out land based on political persuasion, social origin — you name it — we don’t do that,” Chief Executive Officer of the GLSC, Trevor Benn, said, firmly, on the Guyana Chronicle’s Vantage Point, on Thursday.

He stated that it was hard work changing the mindset of the public when they had been long accustomed to blatant and underhanded illegalities when it came to the allocation of land.
As such, he said that persons are often skeptical when conducting certain business at the Commission as they almost expect to be shorthanded. “The trust in the system is just not there,” Benn said. “People believe that once they apply nothing is going to happen for them because nothing has happened for many of them over the years. They’ve been waiting so long so they don’t have trust in the system so they either stay away from it or when they come they want to see the person at the very top.”

SMARTING THE SYSTEM
Benn said that as long as someone approaches the Commission with a sound proposal for the intended use of the land applied for, the Commission grants same, providing that it was in keeping with its availability and the law.

However, he noted that the process remained a long-winded one, as some persons continue to try to find ways to trick the system and that did not help with the credibility of the Commission. “A number of our clients try to cheat the system and they work with people in the inside to facilitate that. When we find that we try to deal with them and then they accuse us of being either partisan or whatever term they use,” Benn said.

“In the past we have found where two different people, sometimes three different people, have lease for the same area. We have to be very sure that that doesn’t happen in the future. We have people who applied before and who may have been in occupation of a portion of land being relieved of that land to someone else who just suddenly appeared on the scene and claimed that they were there, aided and abetted by somebody on the inside.”

Benn added that there were surveys done in the past which depicted lands in certain locations with dimensions that were far from the truth.

The CEO said that, on many occasions, he has spent long hours in his office combing through files and observing entries which were meant to “cheat the system”. His years of service in the field became very useful.

“This is a problem for me because it’s taking away from my personal family time but I have to do it because we have to reduce the incidents of corruption; we have to reduce the incidents of people trying to cheat the system,” he said.

“You constantly have to be looking at every angle of the process to make sure that when the decision is taken that it could withstand the scrutiny of the court.” Due to the recent passage of the Judicial Review Act, Benn said that more persons were pulling the GLSC before the court and that was actually something the Commission welcomes for it aids transparency; helps the Commission to correct instances where it was wrong and gives citizens the right to demand answers about the decisions of public officers.

“We have found that a lot more persons are using it and we encourage them to do it. If we make decisions that you’re not happy with, use the process to challenge us. Maybe we made a wrong decision. Maybe the information we had was not correct but that enables transparency and helps us to refine the way we work,” he said.

The Commission is also working on a National Land Policy which it hopes will help to tackle the issue. The Policy is the first for Guyana and will be a framework of how to proceed with the development of the country’s land. It is expected to be completed in 18 months and funds will be sourced from the US$15M Guyana Red Plus Investment Fund.

The CEO said: “[It will] make sure that every Guyanese knows what are their rights with regard to application for a portion of land.”

BE VIGILANT
Benn said that while the Commission is doing all it can to root out corruption, he’s aware that full eradication may not be possible. This is why even while the Commission is doing its part to fight corruption, citizens must also do their part by being vigilant and cognizant of the processes of the Commission. “We have a zero tolerance for corruption at the Commission and, whenever we find staff members who are corrupt, we deal with them,” Benn said.

“We encourage our clients to observe the rules — pay only to the cashiers at our various offices and insist on collecting a receipt. Do not pay money to our officers, don’t leave it for them to pay on your behalf and there is no requirement of paying an individual.” He stated further that the digitization efforts of the GLSC from paper-based to electronic will help to eliminate the need for persons to visit the Commission’s office for simple matters.

Even as this develops, Benn urged the public to utilize the GLSC’s website to find information regarding payment. He said: “The Guyanese people must rest assured that we have inherited a system that was really broken; we have taken a number of steps to correct that; we are not there yet, we are far from completing the process but the activities we are engaged with in the moment of looking at our strategic plan, looking at our business plan, looking at developing a National Land Use Policy, all of these things are geared towards making sure that we can have a more transparent process.”