The Grenadian team met with directors of the National Land Agency while in Jamaica on a study tour of the agency's operations. Seen from left are Veronica Charles, acting head of the Reform Management Unit; Raphael Stephen, interim director for Executive Agencies at the Ministry of Finance in Grenada; Joern Stoevring, project manager for the Public Sector Modernisation Project, and Robert Branch, registrar in the Grenadian Supreme Court Registry. - File

Grenada, a tiny island with approximately 65,000 to 70,000 parcels of land serving a population of 90,000, has turned to Jamaica for technical advice on setting up a proper land-registration system.

Grenada wants to adopt the Torrens registration system used by Jamaica, whereby a certificate of title is issued to guarantee property ownership - the tiny island now uses the deed system - and hopes to transform its land bank from manual to electronic.

A three-day study tour by a team from Grenada included examination of the National Land Agency's (NLA) Land Registration System and Parcel Data Manage-ment System, as well as divisional operations of the land agency.

Advanced system

"Jamaica is considered advanced in its land administration operations and serves as a development model for other countries," according to the NLA. The Jamaican agency has more than 750,000 parcels of land in its database, 400,000 of which are registered.

The registration process continues, with a minimum of 10,000 new titles issued annually, the agency said.

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