The Lagos State Lands Bureau has commenced a review of its policies and processes to facilitate unhindered and smooth access to members of the public and other stakeholders who transact business with the institution.

Special Adviser on Urban Development, Mrs. Yetunde Onabule, who spoke during a stakeholders engagement on ‘Ease of Doing Business in Lagos State’ said the review became necessary to remove bureaucratic bottlenecks that hindered prompt service delivery in the Lands Bureau.

Mrs. Onabule noted that the need has arisen to automate the land administration process to ensure easy, guaranteed and speedy collection of titles to land and property.

According to her, the Lands Bureau has initiated plans to facilitate ease of doing business by streamlining its processes for collection and submission of applications, demand notices, revenue receipts and registration of title documents.

“We have redesigned the layout of the Land Registry to ensure flow of processes and transactions which will lead to reduced turn-around-time (TAT),” she said.

The Special Adviser added that the process review has culminated in the reduction of the number of units within the Land Registry from eleven to three, adding that the requirement for a sworn-Affidavit prior to conducting Title Search at the Registry has also been cancelled to make the process faster and less cumbersome.

The Permanent Secretary in the Lands Bureau, Mr. Bode Agoro, who also spoke at the forum held at Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, observed that registration of property, amongst others issues, is one of the priority areas for business reforms, noting that Lagos State is a key determinant for improving Nigeria’s rating on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index.

“As a responsive government, we understand and appreciate the importance of impactful reforms that would ease the registration of property, which will invariably improve Nigeria’s rating on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, and our reforms are in line with this,” he stated.

According to Agoro, “On completion, this initiative will revolutionise Land Administration, not only in Lagos State, but also in Nigeria, and will also propel the country’s place on the Ease of Doing Business table by up to 50 places.”

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