Dear Editor,
The diligence of your reporter/interviewer Ms Oluatoyin Alleyne in approaching the Registrar of Deeds on the day following publication of my comments (Sunday Stabroek, February 10) was amply rewarded by what I consider a warm and courageous response from Ms Azeena Baksh, Registrar of Deeds, on pages 10 and 20 of your Sunday Stabroek newspaper of February 17. This was a most healthy deviation from the defensive attitude adopted by too many heads of public-sector departments in response to questions on matters under their charge.
Having regard to the tone of my letter, I had expected the Minister of Legal Affairs to be the source of comment, but I guess he is rather preoccupied by the trials and tribulations currently associated with his prime function as Attorney General.
My allegation of farce in the recent legislation − Deeds and Commercial Authority “relatively new” Act − was not idly made and this derives much support from the frank admission by Ms Baksh, that she expected the touted transition in responsibilities to be achieved in about eighteen months hence. I really do appreciate her graciousness in acknowledging the assistance I seek to give in relation to the Deeds Registry in particular. It is a healthy and ongoing interplay of my experience and her many new ideas which I have not enjoyed for more than twelve years.
One may detect from the Registrar’s comments that “recent achievements” related mainly to the commercial aspects of her present responsibilities, namely the Companies, Business names and Trademarks, all of which, I continue to emphasize, absorb the attention and energies that ought principally to be devoted to her main statutory obligations namely, the maintenance of the system of conveyancing that ensures a reliable record of land titles and transactions. This must be the most compelling focus. Time is not on her side. Eighteen months ahead is a most unhappy prognosis for the spatial relief the Registrar of Deeds urgently needs for the performance of her principal task.
I have been harping on the insistence in the Sandra Jones’s Report of five years ago, that training is the essential initiative to be pursued and I’m sure that report pointed to technical training for technical job-performance. Now I hear that the initial training emphasis is expected to be devoted to something called “corruption.” This malady relates to the 1990s when in the first Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Report of July 1994 (Steven Hendricks/Leon Rockcliffe), we recognized the paucity of the staff remuneration in relation to the substantial monies collected by the department and the quality of service rendered by the staff in the collection of the revenues. It is a profound matter both national and departmental, worthy of much deeper discussion, than should be expected to feature in the preliminary training activities of a management consultant.
It would be most helpful if publication be made of the Terms of Reference of the Consultant in the current IDB Consultancy affecting the Deeds Registry to which the Registrar has referred.
Yours faithfully,
L O Rockcliffe
