Enabling environment for land development

The announcement one year ago by the Commissioner of the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC), Mr Trevor Benn, of the preparation of a National Land Policy was a welcome one. Mr Benn outlined the thrust of the plan in the following manner, “The National Land Policy will set a broad macro-level policy framework for guiding land-related decisions for Guyana.”

Since then, however, and despite a hive of activity, the most compelling development at the Commission seems to be the digitizing of its operations, which is still incomplete. As we pointed out in our December 11 report, the Commissioner “cited the high cost and other challenges of transitioning to a digital system but said that fundamental steps have been taken to set the stage for more substantive improvement that will continue in 2019.” The management of state lands is a crucial aspect of development in a country such as ours, where the land to population ratio (or population density) is a measly 10 persons per square mile, and with 90% of the population living on a coastal strip about 5% of the total area of Guyana, just over 160 persons per square mile.

However, the capital city of Georgetown currently has a population density averaging  about 4,600 persons per square mile, showing plainly that a large percentage of our coastal plain remains uninhabited and underdeveloped. Any land policy put forward by the Government of Guyana must address the issue of opening up land for use by the citizens of Guyana in the development of the country of Guyana. It is foolhardy to leave so much of the land uninhabitable, particularly with such a small population. We had made the point in these editorial pages that the building of expansive road networks must precede land development allocation to the public and to agricultural and commercial entities.

Commissioner Benn has announced the opening up of a new 6,000 acres to land development and this is also good news. However, the fear expressed by Mr Benn of squatters taking over the intended development if it is clearly specified up front points to a weak monitoring, control and enforcement capability by the Commission. The willingness of some individuals to see an opportunity and try to position themselves to benefit from the opportunity is essentially a description of the entrepreneurial spirit. The entrepreneurial spirit is what drives development and progress in any economy. The ability of a government agency to exercise control of the state’s assets within its care is dependent on its own systems, human and physical resources at its disposal, and the level of discipline and focus of the agency’s management. Without the ability to monitor the development in real time, the result is that the agency only becomes aware of squatters long after permanent structures have been erected and some level of development, however corkscrewed, has already begun. We believe that the new development cannot be considered a development if it does not begin with the establishment of a modern road network, built to be relevant a minimum of ten years after settlement of the development by citizens and businesses.

This takes us to the recent announcement by the Commissioner as headlined in the Guyana Chronicle of December 18, “Defaulting lessees, squatting major challenges to GLSC.” In the article, reference is made to “non-performing leases” which are described as “non-beneficial occupation” and “non-payment” of land rent. According to the article, the Commissioner lamented that “In many instances we have persons coming and making demands for lands and producing really good business plans to us…and when you do give it to them it sits inactive, nothing is done with it and they also don’t pay the land rent. So, we’re left with no choice but to repossess some of those lands. It’s costing us a lot of money to do the repossession and it’s very tedious and time consuming.”

While the dilemma that the Commission faces with respect to “non-performing” leases is understood, it seems that the Commission itself is “non-performing” in the sense that it appears to have failed at the conceptual level to see its own (or government’s) developmental role outside of simply handing out lands. Put another way, is there an enabling environment for persons to achieve the results outlined in the Business Plans? Is the financing available within the financial system for projects that are undertaken on land leased from the government? If the project defaults, can the financier levy on the land and the assets thereon? Can the land and assets be transferred by the financier to a new developer? If the answers to these questions are unclear or an outright “no” then it means that despite the well-meaning business plans from well-meaning entrepreneurs, the various projects are likely never to proceed further than the paper they are written on.

But the fault for all this cannot rest on the shoulders of those who applied for and received the leased lands, the enabling environment for development of lands is a responsibility of the government, pure and simple. Whether it be the establishment of a road network, or other developments like running water and electricity, or establishing a legal framework for utilising the land for accessing development financing – these are all the responsibility of the government of Guyana. So, the non-performing condition of the leases is partially the fault of the very agency as an arm of the government, and not necessarily the fault of the lease-holders alone, although there may be exceptions.

Therefore, the approach by the Commission to waste time and effort in repossessing state leases without fixing the “enabling environment” is likely to be a failed strategy. This is because, although land is re-issued to new persons, there is no guarantee that these persons in turn may not be a future source of default in the coming years. Commissioner Benn’s own words that, “It’s costing us a lot of money do the repossession and it’s very tedious and time consuming,” indicate that the GLSC must adopt a more forward-thinking approach to resolving the issue of non-performing leases.

The fault-finding approach to punish and penalize without offering a solution is a very Guyanese one but needs to be aborted. We have too much land and too little people to waste our time and resources in this manner.