By YINKA KOLAWOLE

.. .Explains delay in GIS take-off
Lagos State government has commenced moves to reduce the cost of land documentation in the state.

Surveyor General of Lagos State, Mr Joseph Olorunjuwon Agbenla, who disclosed this recently, also explained that the delay in the take-off of the state’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and digital mapping was due to logistic problems.

It would be recalled that a report on Doing Business 2012 by the World Bank noted that the average cost of registration as a percentage of property value in Nigeria is 20.8 percent, compared to average of 9.4 percent for sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, the report stated that property registration costs 0.7 percent of property value in Ghana; 3.0 percent in Sudan; 5.0 percent in Botswana; while in South Africa, registration costs 5.6 percent of property value.

Agbenla however said that Governor Babatunde Fashola assured officials of the World Bank during a recent visit to his office, that government will do everything necessary to substantially reduce cost of land acquistion and documentation in the state.

“The World Bank during their visit made the observation and the governor has said he would do all in his power to reduce this cost, not only for individual developers of housing projects, but for every category of people who need land, including investors,” he remarked.

On the take-off of GIS in the state, he assured that it would go online before the end of the year, adding that existing pieces of information were being uploaded onto the system.

According to him, “the present land documentation system is slowed down by physical submission and retrieval of land information for processing land titles, particularly Certificate of Occupancy (C of O). The base station is ready and would become operational once some issues are resolved.

“Very soon, the GIS and enterprise mapping project will be in the air. The delay was due to some logistic reasons beyond anybody’s control. The project has been completed and the necessary data had been uploaded; we are currently addressing the grey areas.

“Within a limited number of months, we will be in the air and people will have access to it from anywhere in the world. We have the control room at the Abacus Centre, which is the computer system centre for the Lagos State Government. The website is already completed and we have the officers on ground to administer and manage it. Once the citizens pay, they will be given cards from Interswitch to access the system.”

Agbenla said the aim is to integrate data from the land registry, land information systems and GIS to have a robust land registry.

“At the punch of a button we will have the characteristics of all land in Lagos State, the government will not only earn money but the public will have ease in identifying their properties and the issue of multiple C of O will be a thing of the past. The state government has done a lot in that line. The package has been uploaded and everything is set. It is just some gray areas that are being fashioned out now,” he stated.