Online Reporter
Theseus Mauruki Shambare
Herald Reporter
LAND administration in Zimbabwe is expected to improve significantly within the next six months as Government accelerates the rollout of a comprehensive digital land management system to improve service delivery, enhance transparency and reduce land-related disputes.
For years, Zimbabwe’s land administration has largely relied on fragmented manual records and ageing information systems, resulting in delays in processing applications, boundary disputes and opportunities for irregularities.
As the Government intensifies the rollout of land tenure documents, the digital transformation is expected to modernise the administration of one of the country’s most strategic national assets, enhance security of tenure, improve access to land services and drive broader rural development.
Speaking at commemorations of World Rural Development Day in Harare yesterday, held under the global theme, “Financing the First Mile of Food Systems”, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands and Rural Development, Professor Prosper Matondi, said the reforms were central to building efficient, transparent and people-centred land administration systems.
“We are implementing a land information management system so that we are more efficient in the provision of services to the public, while also ensuring that we secure all land, as mandated by the Constitution and the laws of the country,” said Prof Matondi.
He said the ministry was creating a single, integrated national land registry to eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen accountability in land administration.
“We want to eliminate what I describe as malfeasance in the delivery of land-based services. For that, we require one single land registry for the country that provides multiple, complex and non-complex datasets that are supposed to be used by the public,” he said.
Prof Matondi said the reforms would replace outdated technologies that have for years constrained efficient land administration.
“We have several land management information systems. We hold data in Excel. We hold data in Microsoft Access. In these systems, anyone can go and change the attributes at any time they want.
“Those are the things that we say, before we even move any further, we must retire this ancient technology and put it in the museum where it belongs, and then put what is current to use.”
The digitisation programme builds on the one-stop title deeds centre launched in Harare in October last year to process title deeds for A1 and A2 farmers.
Prof Matondi acknowledged that boundary disputes and mapping challenges remain some of the biggest obstacles to the smooth processing of title deeds, saying Government was addressing the problem.
