By Peter Duru

MAKURDI – In a bid to check incidents of fraud and sharp practices in land administration in Benue State, the Governor Gabriel Suswam-led administration has commenced the automation of land administration with a N500 million Benue Land Information Management System (BenLIMS).

According to the Benue State Commissioner for Lands and Survey, Mr Sam Dura, the new project has completely changed the face of land management in the state.

Dura told Vanguard that the first phase of the project which is expected to be commissioned by the government early next month had completely checked incidents of fraud in the sector and boosted the revenue profile of the ministry in the last few months, saying: “We are surprised at the boost in our revenue generation profile in the last few months because with this system, no one handles cash in the ministry as all payments are made at the banks.

“This project which is tailored towards the Abuja AGIS, is the best thing to have happened to our state since its creation in 1976, and we will ever remain grateful to Governor Gabriel Suswam for his foresight and the total transformation of land administration in the state.

“BenLIMS has completely sidetracked incidents of fraud and sharp practices in land administration in the state just as a comprehensive data on all land dealings in the state would also be readily available on our site. This is just astonishing, I must confess,” he said.

The Lands Commissioner further said the project had also afforded his team an up-to-date information on the revenue profile of the ministry, adding: “We now have all information regarding our financial accounts at our finger tips, which means that we have done away with audit queries and all of that, which hitherto were sometimes raised years after service in the ministry.”

Dura further disclosed that at the moment, no fewer than 19,000 files had been captured in the BenLIMS data base.