Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ministry of Lands awards contract to US firm to manage Land Registry

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Zambia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the blockchain land registry subsidiary of American retail giant Overstock.

Under the agreement, Overstock’s Medici Land Governance (MLG) will work with the Zambian government on overhauling land ownership, allowing rural landowners to legitimize their estates and gain access to the financial world.

Medici Land Governance signed the MoU with Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources in Zambia Trevor Kaunda, to develop a program for systematic land governance within the country.

Overstock.com founder and CEO Patrick Byrne said in a statement that the project would help the country move toward a global economy that builds trust through technology.

“Such a registry would allow individuals across all socioeconomic classes to build equity and leverage it to their benefit, as it has done in the West for generations,” he added.

Zambia struggles with low levels of participation in formal land registry systems, which has hindered economic development in the country, according to the announcement.

This low participation is a major barrier to financial inclusion, and hence economic development, for approximately two-thirds of the world’s population.

Without formal ownership, individuals struggle to obtain access to credit and public services, while governments are limited in their ability to collect taxes, enforce property rights, and plan for economic expansion and innovation.

Using blockchain and other technologies, Medici Land Governance will create systems to collect and easily secure property ownership information.
 
“This momentous partnership with the Zambian Ministry of Land and Natural Resources has the potential to be a real, sustainable game-changer in reducing poverty and supporting economic development on a large scale,” said Medici Land Governance CEO, Dr. Ali El Husseini.

“At Medici Land Governance, we believe that the first step toward reducing global poverty is to build a secure and stable way to record land and property rights, and using our expertise in blockchain, mobile apps, and other technologies, we are building the technology that can do that. I look forward to a future where all land and property services — including utility payments, national and municipal tax collections, and mortgages — are managed on a secure, user-friendly system that provides equal access for all people.”
 
As part of the MOU, MLG has agreed to deliver to the Ministry certificates of title in digital and printed form by November 30, 2018 to serve as proof of concept for a systematic, streamlined process to scale up the country’s land titling program.

Plans for the full scope of the project include developing a blockchain-based land titling program that includes a mobile platform and capabilities for mobile payments.

The platform will accommodate streamlined regulations and data collection to assist future government decisions around city planning and land use.

13 COMMENTS

  1. Some thinking is just absurd. You go to the USA to get a company to register villagers. Why cant you give that job to local people? These taill enders in thinking are worrying.

    • Not surprised under clueless Lungu’s administration. You mean Zambia can’t come up with a foolproof system to solve this problem, and instead you have to have an American company managing your land affairs for you? Wow. What’s next are you going to externalize? If you don’t know what to do, hold town hall meetings, or put the issue out in the open for Zambians globally to have a discussion on it. There are many educated intelligent Zambians who could’ve offered a better solution than what you came up with. But you’re scared of educated Zambians and so you would rather deal with a Western company directly to manage your land affairs. What a shame.

  2. Wow ,just had to go to US blockchain tech for salvation because Zambian land registry officials are irredeemably corrupt.

    • They are already wiping your asses with the Millennium account where they are cleaning your sewage pipes and drainage

  3. JEAN KAPATA, I KNEW FROM THE BEGINNING THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU, ZAMBIA LAND REGISTRY TO USA COMPANY DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

  4. ZAMBIANS WORK UP PLEASE, RISE UP FOR OUR MOTHER ZAMBIA, FOREIGNERS ARE TAKING IT AWAY FROM US WHILE WE KEEP WATCHING, PF FOR HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO ABUSE US? ZAMBIANS PLEASE WOKE UP, MY HEART BLEEDS FOR MOTHER ZAMBIA

  5. With endemic fake Matero printed title deeds, block chain strategy is the way to go in that the cryptography technology allows digital information to be distributed, but not copied….so mwanya Ba Matero.

    Blockchain cryptography keeps decentralized database exchanges secure, which everyone on the network can see but can not be copied.

    Of course I know of a Zambian firm that is licenced by google to provide blockchain cryptography, but going by the road sector empowerment which produced mediocre outputs, I think for now, this arrangement is best. May be future arrangements can be considered for local licencees

  6. This is excellent! I hope that at the end of the exercise, a land inventory will be made and appropriate Tax levied to all title holders. A few people own vast areas of land which they cannot utilise and are able to hold it for their next generations because they do not pay anything on the land they own. Most of the times people who own many properties in form of land did not obtain it fairy and by this exercise, they will be forced to sell it at affordable price to the next person who can use it if the land is valued appropriately and Taxed appropriately. Government is hungry for money to effect development and our land can help generate revenue if it is titled and accounted for.

  7. If thinking once is not enough, think twice; if thinking twice is still not sufficient, think thrice. Or else, seek God’s intervention, since you claim to be ‘Christians’.
    In my opinion, the idea is no bad, as long as the so called government consults all relevant stakeholders; otherwise, this will just show the outside world that we are some primitive state.

  8. Its really sillly for the govt and all people involved to always seek foreign interventions for their poor or failure to manage these resources. The govt and leaders do not encourage innovations in the country hence there are no local solutions locally. What else is the govt not seeking help for! We will always lag behind with this mentality. Soon we will have some foreign company managing the security of our president and the country at large.

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