The City of Kigali has said that delays in land transfer and construction permits will be drastically reduced by 2023.

Merard Mpabwanamaguru, Kigali’s Vice-Mayor in charge of urbanisation and infrastructure, made the announcement in line with the week dedicated to addressing issues related to land transfer that kicked off on November 7 at Gikondo Expo ground.

The response follows an assessment carried out by Rwanda Civil Society Platform, which disclosed that citizens are protesting delays in land transfer, making the case for the government's quick intervention.

The maximum time for land transfer, according to the National Land Authority, varies between 1 and 18 working days.

However, the assessment disclosed that there are delays in the land transfer process where residents spend over a month seeking it.

According to the survey, 73.6 per cent of those seeking land services are spending about a month seeking the services up to the last step, 14.7 per cent use between one and three months to get to the last step of land services while 9.3 per cent and 2.3 per cent spend between three and six months, as well as more than six months respectively.

It also found that there is limited staff in charge of land services while some sectors do not have land notaries.

Mpabwanamaguru said that there are ongoing reforms to address the raised complaints.

"The City is designing settlement sites in different parts and the demand for land transfer and construction is on the rise. Therefore, we want to address delays in land service delivery.

"We hope that by 2023, we will have ended delays in land service delivery. In the past year, one officer in charge of land services could serve between three and five sectors at once. Now there must be a land officer in every sector who also serves as a notary,” he assured.

He said that more workers have been recruited to work in Land Administration Information System (LAIS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to help fast-track land transfer and land service delivery in general.

"Only 15 persons in charge of land services were serving all 30 sectors. Today, every sector must have an officer in charge of land services. The same person could also carry an inspection, but we have now recruited an inspector in every sector,” he said.

He added that measures to address delays in construction services have also been taken.

"In particular, the City of Kigali is increasing the number of workers in charge of infrastructure and issuing some construction permits such as renovation permits in every sector.

"We want that in 2023, a resident gets a construction permit within 15 days and if it delays, the permit will be available within not more than 21 days,” he said.

He said, workers in charge of infrastructure and issuing some construction permits have so far been deployed in 11 sectors, adding that by January next year, all sectors will have these staff.

"In December this year, we will also dedicate a week to issue construction permits that have been delayed,” he said.

Mpabwanamaguru added that digitising the land transferring system-where people will get paperless land titles-will reduce delays in land transfer.

Marie-Grace Nishimwe, Head of the Land Administration Department at the National Land Authority, said that the system to digitise the land transferring system will be scaled up across the country by end of December 2022.

"Regulations regarding paperless land titles have been worked on and we are improving the system before being scaled up,” she said.

"The system should be fast-tracked because three months have elapsed ever since I started the land transfer process, but I am still waiting for the land title today,” noted Jeanine Umugwaneza, a resident of Kicukiro district.

Eliezer Maniraho, a resident of Jabana sector of Gasabo district, also revealed that it’s been three months since he started processing for land transfer.

With his case however, one of the issues delaying the process, is that of wrong demarcations with neighbours.

"It requires the neighbours’ presence before fixing the demarcations, yet some stay very far, which makes it difficult for them to be accessible,” he said.

According to National Land Authority officials, the technology that was used in demarcating and registering land parcels was not precise, hence demarcations are gradually corrected.