2.7bn/- vehicles to boost land tenure project

DODOMA: THE Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development has bought at least 16 new vehicles to help fast-tracking implementation of the Land Tenure Improvement Project (LTIP).

Worth more than 2.7bn/- , the vehicles are part of 70 vehicles that the parent ministry plans to procure in total to ensure effective implementation of the country-wide major lands management initiative.

During a handing over ceremony yesterday at the ministry headquarters located at the government city of Mtumba, the Minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements, Jerry Silaa called for patriotic use of the vehicles to help the project succeed.

According to the minister, the ongoing project which has been funded by the World Bank (WB) to the tune of 150 million US dollars, (about 382bn/-), is the country’s maiden and vast initiative on the lands management and settlement sector.

“This is the country’s first giant project on proper land management and ownership which involves billions of money and thus, make sure these vehicles are used intendedly,” the minister insisted.

He hailed President Samia Suluhu Hassan for enabling the implementation of the vital project, insisting that if executed effectively it will play a useful role in helping strengthen the land management sector across the country.

Among other things, LTIP focuses on increasing the security of land ownership across the nation through implementing several interventions towards planning, surveying, registering, and issuing the right of land occupancy.

For his part, the project’s coordinator, Joseph Shewiyo said the vehicles have been obtained through the United Nations Organisations Procurement and Services (UNOPS).

He noted that as per plans, the project will purchase a total of 70 vehicles, adding: “To start with, we have decided to purchase these 16 vehicles, each costing more than 129m/-, whereby the remaining vehicles will be procured later in the future”.

Explaining further, the coordinator stated that the initiative will work out several issues, all with patriotic efforts to improve the lands management sector from the grassroots across the country.

“The project entails a series of interventions, including efforts to digitalise processing and storing of all data about the land sector,” he informed.

Together with that, he said that the other intervention will focus on building the capacity of local workers involved in the lands planning and managing sector, as well as improving teaching structures at some land colleges, including the colleges in Tabora and Morogoro.

“There will also be construction of a total of 25 new offices for lands in different 25 regions to improve performance in managing the vital sector in the regions,” he expressed.

The LTIP, which is a collaborative effort between the government of Tanzania and the Bretton’s Woods Institution, was initiated in 2022 and is expected to phase out in 2027. Its primary objective is to formalise land ownership for citizens in urban and rural areas, thereby enhancing the security of land tenure in Tanzania.