by Emmanuel H. Joseph
Government Information Service
Government is currently in the process of reviewing the legislation as it relates to land and land tenure in Dominica. Among those to be looked at includes land title, security of tenure, agricultural tenancies, idle land, the status of family land, planning controls, land use policy and survey regulations. This is being done through a consultancy currently being undertaken here in Dominica.
In a recent discussion at the Government Information Service, Charles Whitaker, a consultant from Brown and Co., a United Kingdom and Caribbean based property and agricultural business consultancy firm, explained the scope of the consultancy.
 Charles Whitaker, Brown &
Co. Property & Business
Consultants LLP
“As far as the scope of this particular assignment is concerned from our consultancy, we are asked to interact with the public and relevant agencies, government agencies and private concerns in Dominica in order to gather soundings, really, and information and data. This is in order to quantify some of the issues that surround constraints about occupancy of land for agricultural purposes currently. You have touched on family land which I would like to expand on....because that is a significant issue, we feel as consultants that affect the working of a land market and occupancy of land in Dominica and in other islands of the region.”
Mr. Whitaker who is currently working with the Reform Management Unit, RMU, in Dominica is working alongside Mr. Graham Smith, a land agricultural lawyer in the UK are tasked with the development of a legislative and regulatory framework to provide for security in tenancy arrangements together with recommending amendments to relevant legislation.
The exercise which commenced in January of 2010 is foundered by the European Development Fund (EDF) and forms part of a wider programme under Government’s Land Tenure and Administrative Reform Programme.
Solicitor General, Wynante Adrian-Roberts who was also part of the discussion team said that the consultancy will take into consideration a number of areas including amendments to the Title by Registration Act to ensure certainty of title, a prerequisite for development of property in Dominica.
 Solicitor General,
Wynante Adrian-Roberts
“That is what ties in this consultancy that we are discussing today and how we can create a legislative framework to support that whole unit system, to support the whole registration of titles, to support land ownership in Dominica, to register various interests because no matter what system you put in place, there must be a legislative and regulatory framework to support that system. That is what Mr. Whitaker and his company, Brown and Co. is doing for us: dealing with the land tenancy and telling us what is the best says persons can hold lands.”
Mrs. Adrian-Roberts went on to say that there are several issues that arise that need to be looked at.
“...family lands that have not been subdivided, some lands that have not been registered, how do banks and financial institutions register their interest by caveats on mortgages. So these are all the issues that Brown and Co. is dealing with in respect to that particular consultancy.”
In the meantime, Deputy Registrar of the OECS Supreme court who is based in Dominica, Ossie Walsh, said that Government already started the process with the establishment of an Administrative Reform Task Force. That Task Force is currently working with the consultants.
 Deputy Registrar of the
OECS Supreme court,
Ossie Walsh
“The Task Force has been set up now for about two (2) years. We have looked at, with the consultants, at the Title by Registration Act, the Lands and Survey Act and now the consultants are looking more closely at ways and means of the Agriculture and Small Tenancy Act. Today, the focus will be on the Chapter 5870 of the Laws of the Commonwealth of Dominica which pertains to the Agricultural Small Tenancy Act.”
The consultancy will also look to strengthen the capacity of and linkages between key institutions and agents of Government involved in the administration of land. A series of consultation meetings with relevant stakeholders on Government Land Reform Plans took place in January and March of this year. |
