Dear Editor,
The Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority Act, 2013 came into force on the 30th day of April, 2014 by Order of the then Minister of Legal Affairs Mr Anil Nandlall. Although its birth had been featured in my letter to you, SN October 3, 2014 but principally because its early and urgent repeal enjoys my strong recommendation, I ask that you allow me some necessary repetition that should afford the reader a better understanding of what has actually taken place.
On February 3, 1999 there was passed in the National Assembly an Act intituled, The Deeds Registry Authority Act, 1999. It was an imposition by overseas financing institutions that such legislation should be on our statute books in order that our country might enjoy certain financial benefits deriving from its being categorized as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country. This Act apparently achieved its purpose. That recommended new structure of the Deeds Registry was never addressed until the year 2010 when several abortive attempts at its implementation were made by the Minister of Legal Affairs of that day by whose Order the Act would come into operation.
Meanwhile, this writer with a continuing passion for the success of the Deeds Registry as the principal governmental agency regarding communal titles to land, had by letter of 11th July, 2001 to the Attorney General of that day advocated to the government that serious consideration be given to the establishment of a separate ‘Registry of Commerce’ probably and more logically, placed under the aegis of the Ministry of Trade. This would free the Registrar of Deeds to concentrate on the task of establishing and maintaining the reliable Registry of Lands governing transports, leases and mortgages of immovable property in the three counties as mandated by the Deeds Registry Ordinance of January 1,1920 of Guyana. This was and remains the simple but understandably serious mandate of tile Registrar of Deeds.
The governmental administration which took effect in early December, 2011 then embarked upon the creation of an ‘Authority’ by ‘The Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority Act 2013.’ By so doing, they sought to combine two disparate activities, viz Companies Incorporation, Intellectual Property (Trade Marks and Patents), Bills of Sale and Business Names Registration, all of commercial category, with the distinct and vitally important administration of Land Titles namely, transports, mortgages, leases, etc, and Deeds Registration which requires the separate and undiluted attention of a Registrar of Deeds. So they missed the bus entirely and proceeded to combine both categories of activities to the control and operation of this one new ‘Authority’ which took legal effect on 1st June, 2014.
By this device the government was clearly seen as seeking to abdicate that total hands-on responsibility and sacred obligation for something as serious as the preservation and continued operation of a reliable system of titles to communal land. They failed to recognize its importance as an item underlying social order, personal security and economic activity.
The Commercial Registry I leave to more educated minds. My principal focus today, I unashamedly admit, is on the Deeds Registry.
The Governing Board of this Authority was upon its initiation comprised of a Chairman and six members none of whom, except possibly the Registrar of Deeds, brought to the Board any notable experience in the conduct of the business of the Deeds Registry, on the one hand nor the Commercial Registry on the other. It is into the hands of a corps of new and inexperienced, but probably well-meaning persons under the optimistic appellation of an ‘Authority’ that the erstwhile responsibility of the Ministry of Legal Affairs is committed. The government, in effect, has sought to create a new department to perform that oversight of the two sets of functions which the Ministry of Legal Affairs could and should perform with one or two officials of the appropriate calibre.
This writer, I remind you, Editor, was not slow to recognize and deem that operation as a farce, as my letter to you (SN, June 11, 2014) testifies. What I find rather distressing is that in the seventeen months since their incorporation they have done nothing to disprove the reasonable accuracy of that assessment. On the basis of my more than sixty-five years of close connection with the business of the Deeds Registry including the Commercial, I greeted their appointment by addressing to the initial chairman and to each member a letter of “welcome” accompanied by a small dossier of documentation comprising recommendations for their immediate attention and copies of correspondence carried earlier by your letter pages. It is a matter of regret that to date, I have received in reply not one word or sentence of comment, appreciation or disagreement. So much for quality!
My disappointment over their silence on the issues raised is intensified in relation to the matter of the training of supportive clerical staff of the Registries the urgency of which was emphasized in the reports of consultants, more than six years ago. That training deficiency remains unaddressed up to the present with no indication of the required action being on the present agenda.
I had included my own list of recommended legislation, eg, the basic Deeds Registry Act, the Land Registry Act and related legal material with “which at least every older clerical employee must be armed as day-to-day equipment toward their intelligent and informed dealings with legal practitioners and the public.” Again, regret, no actual response.
We must face the fact that the Deeds Registry is no longer the locus of educated and intellectual endeavour that it had been.
And, by the way, if I may employ so banal an expression, there is as yet no appointment of a Registrar of the Commercial Registry, nor any news of the identification of some attorney-at-law as prospective holder of that position or even as trainee. Indeed, I ask, is there yet a Commercial Registry in operation? No such sign appears on location at the Deeds Registry office where matters of a commercial nature continue to be dealt with.
And again, by the way, may we expect to be favoured with the appointment of a new chairman of the Authority since the elevation to higher office of the first chairman more than seven months ago? I understand that the new Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr Basil Williams, has for the past few months assumed that function wholly or partially. The measure of administrative or technical expertise he contributes is a matter of conjecture.
May I now bring to the table a more fundamental question regarding the ambit of the business of the Authority, namely the position of the Land Registry. Now, the Land Registry, in operation since the year 1960, governs a more recent but equally important system of title to land as deserving of the efficiency of operation expected of the Registrar of Deeds under the Deeds Registry Act.
Indeed, both land-title systems are in operation under our very eyes in the capital city Georgetown. I cite as cogent examples all of the lands of South Ruimveldt Gardens and Park, North Ruimveldt, the lands in eastern Georgetown commonly described as ‘Sophia’, as well as all the new privately-owned housing developments east of Eccles, Republic Park and Providence on the east bank of Demerara. How could any government be comfortable with the establishment of an ‘Authority’, if one were at all needed, which seeks to ignore both the coexistence and the correlation between its principal systems of communal land titling and treat their existence as separate?
What is clear to me is that there is no logical argument for the inclusion of the Deeds Registry with the ‘Commercial’. There is no relationship between the two except for the historical fact that they had both been for years administered by the same Registrar of Deeds. No logic, only history. The physical parting is now absolutely essential in order that the much needed vacated space may be made available to the Registrar of Deeds for the urgent, outstanding repairs to the land-title records of the transports system. These repairs must be undertaken with great care in order that the much-touted digitization may be based on accurate input above all.
But there is an even more telling issue: that of the management responsibility on the shoulders of the Registrar of Deeds. Mainly on account of the protracted delay in the physical placement of the Commercial Registry at its newly appointed site at Avenue of the Republic and Commerce Street (the former NBS building) and the identification of a Registrar of the Commercial Registry, the Registrar of Deeds is overburdened by the assumed and demanding responsibility for the physical establishment of that Commercial Registry Office.
It is clearly inhuman and counterproductive for the Registrar of Deeds, with no Deputy, to continue to be so burdened to the detriment of the demanding operations of the Deeds Registry at three locations, including New Amsterdam and Suddie and the passing of transports, mortgages, etc, twice each week in Georgetown, and once each week in the other two locations.
Since, therefore, there is no logic to the placement of the Deeds Registry along with the Commercial, I consider it incumbent upon the government to move with speed to embark upon the necessary process of bringing this separation about. The Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority Act 2013 must be appropriately amended or preferably repealed.
The farce has already proven itself and the two parties must be released to go their separate ways.
Yours faithfully,
Leon O Rockcliffe
