FOR six months now, Gasabo District has not had a public notary and this has led to a backlog of land documents which are gathering dust at the district.

Currently for anyone in Gasabo to make any land transactions, they have to wait until the notaries from the neighbouring districts of Kicukiro and Nyarugenge have time to verify their documents. The most affected people are those seeking mortgage services and others who come in the country to buy land and need to travel back immediately.

As we prioritise services like health and education, we should not overlook services pertaining to land management and ownership, especially because land is a very important factor of production.

The development of a country is largely determined by how land is owned and utilised. Therefore, six months without a public notary is too long a period especially given the significant role that notaries play in the community. The Ministry of Public Service and Labour should therefore work hard to address this problem to avoid a situation where people will resort to underhand methods to access such services.

This also serves as a lesson that delivery of services is not something we can compromise on. People always entrust their mandate to authorities hoping for efficient service delivery. Under normal circumstances, processing land documents would take only five working days but at the moment, one can take as long as four months to get notary services. This does not only affect those seeking mortgage services and real estate dealers but also has the potential to undermine government’s efforts towards timely and efficient service delivery.