Land system will soon be computerised
From a former Prime Minister to a current Deputy Prime Minister. On Thursday night’s “One on One with Dickie Bradley”, the man in the hotseat was Minister of Natural Resources, Johnny Briceno. While Briceno didn’t make too much mention of News Five’s ongoing investigation of land policy, past and present, he did allude to important changes going on inside his ministry. Briceno says beginning in September, a new computer system will be keeping tabs on all land owners and every piece of Belizean land.
Johnny Briceno, Minister Natural Resources
“We’re computerising the whole system and that’s going to revolutionize the whole ministry. It’s a system where from the day you apply, it’s entered into the computer system and as that file moves from hand to hand, it’s going to be tracked by the computer. So no longer will you be hearing that a file is lost, you don’t know who have it or…”
Dickie Bradley
“When will you stop losing files?”
Johnny Briceno
“We are not losing them as much as before, let me put it that way. This should come on stream by January first, this coming year. As it is right now, we’re already using the cashier system which is computerised that as you pay we could immediately enter it into your system as opposed to doing it by hand in the ledger. Everything is going to be computerised so that as you get a lease, an account is opened automatically for you we can keep track of your files. The one neat thing that we are going to be doing, is that we are going to be giving you a unique identifier, a number. Because what has happened…”
Dickie Bradley
“For each land owner?”
Johnny Briceno
“For each land owner because what has happened over times, is that someone’s name is John Paul Jones, he applies for a land under John Paul Jones and then he comes back and apply under John Jones, then under Paul Jones, then under John P. Jones. Under this system that we’ll be using as of September first, is that any transaction you want to do within the ministry, you must have your new Social Security Card. As soon as you come in, the first thing we’ll ask for is that unique number. We’ll plug it into the computer and it’s going to…Dickie Bradley, put that number and it’s going to show all the lands that you have.”
According to Briceno, almost one million records have already been processed by the Lands Department.
