Dear Editor,
In what I had intimated would be my last letter to you on the problems of the Deeds Registry in relation to its land-titles records, I did express my utter disappointment over the fact that following the evacuation of the Commercial Registry ever since December, 2015, there is no manifest effort by the Registrar of Deeds to utilize the now vacant space toward the rehabilitation and repair of the land registers. They remain in a most appalling state and their deterioration continues unabated.
The so-called Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority, already discarded by me as a patent farce, peopled as it is with no one having any true administrative ability or technical knowledge of land titles, has already established itself as devoid of any relevant capability in the marshalling of the land-titles aspect of the obligations of the Deeds Registry.
Nor is the present Minister of Legal Affairs who has not seen fit even to acknowledge receipt of my letter to him delivered within a few weeks of his present assignment. I am accordingly moved that I ought, as a final resort, to invoke the involvement of the Head of State on this matter of extreme urgency.
It is my conviction that there is a basic spiritual obligation of every such Head of State to render account for each square millimetre of the lands and waters situated within his political charge. Such lands and waters on every part of the surface of the this earth, whether acquired by conquest, conflict, cession or settlement of dispute were all initially acquired at the expense of many millions of gallons of precious human blood. It is this particular quality which imposes upon a leader the necessity to regard that obligation with the highest degree of sacredness that may be contemplated.
Since he could not be expected to discharge such obligations personally, he would as a practical expedient assign them to his ministers who would in turn rely upon such officials as the Registrars of Deeds and Lands, the Commissioner of Lands and Surveys as well as heads of those agencies governing Land Settlement, Mines, Forestry and Amerindian Affairs. The common element among these is that they all administer the sacred matter of the issue of title to land.
Under immediate focus is the Registrar of Deeds in relation to all those parts of Guyana, title to which is administered and held under the Roman Dutch Transports system. That system obtains in the three counties of Guyana and the simple but all-embracing mandate of the Registrar of Deeds is plainly set out in the Deeds Registry Act. Well, it is an irrefutable fact that the Registrar’s mandate in relation to its record-keeping is at present ill-served to an ominous degree. As noted before in my continued public comment, the so-called ‘Authority’ remains, as expected, a very lame duck. The current Minister, to whom the Authority ultimately must report, does not, like his predecessors in office, betray any evidence of becoming concerned, while the legal profession remains in somnolent silence.
But much of the patent failure rests upon the human beings charged with the conduct and essential rectification of the system. And this is where the present and previous administrations stand guilty of the gravest sin. I refer in particular to the issue of formal departmental and legal education and training of the operatives, mainly at the Deeds Registry itself. There, they daily pass and execute their uneducated judgment on legal matters, mainly involving conveyances filed by attorneys-at-law, and to be considered for official attention.
There is, quite evidently, a troublingly low level of respect on the part of Ministry, Authority and Registrar for the element of training as an essential component in any forward-looking operation on the part of the Deeds Registry. Despite repeated reminders by the most recent management consultants ever since 2008, the issue of such training remains virtually dead-in-the-water.
I continue to insist that every member of the senior (in age, at least) employees ought to be conversant with and qualified to make intelligent comment on all aspects of the legislation governing the activities and obligations of the Deeds Registry.
Regrettably, the present administration does not appear to share such a view, hence the palpably low level of intelligence displayed by the current members of the lay staff. Additionally, my off-repeated appeals to the Registrar for provision of maps of Georgetown and Regions of Guyana, and local publications, including subscription to at least two daily newspapers with their often stimulating contributions to the letter pages have borne no fruit. Cultivation of a disheartening condition of ignorance of public affairs and issues seems to occupy pride of place on the departmental agenda.
It should be noted that I have dealt only with my observations of the operations of the principal Deeds Registry at Georgetown. The conditions at New Amsterdam Registry in Berbice and at Suddie in Essequibo may be explored by the more adventurous!
I must insert here a development of ‘stop-press’ quality. On Monday, 20th June, 2016 there appeared at the Georgetown Registry a brand-new Deputy Registrar of Deeds, compliments of the Judicial Service Commission, to occupy that office which had remained vacant since November, 2015. Welcome to the recuperative process, Ms Zanna Frank, attorney-at-law!
I have left for last a matter of gravest concern which I consider a serious travesty by the Registrar of Deeds regarding the availability of records to the public provided for by the Deeds Registry Rules. I refer in particular to land-surveyors’ plans deposited as public record with the Registrar as a basis for thousands of transports of separate lots or areas of land and in particular sub-divisions of such lots and lands into transported or leasehold tenement.
Over the years, at least for the past century, all plans used or intended to be a basis for conveyances are required to be deposited in the Deeds Registry for the satisfaction of the lawyers, land surveyors, Registrar, business agencies, statutory institutions and importantly the public, who are entitled by law to inspect such plans for the resolution of any doubts or possible conflicts regarding the lands so surveyed or those adjacent. These plans were kept in the main vault, at first in drawers of large wooden or metal cabinets, and more recently since the year 2005/6 in open recesses in one wall of the said vault.
Now with the reconfiguration of the said main vault about six months ago the plans were all taken from their recesses and placed in several opaque large plastic bags, defying access to them by land surveyors, the public and except for those recently deposited, the staff of the Registry. A ridiculous, untenable, and legally offensive disarrangement which calls for immediate redress. The excuse/explanation by the Registrar using such terms as that magic word “digitization” and transfer to another location are patently unacceptable.
This action, so basic and extremely contrary, will certainly inhibit the issue by the Registrar of Deeds of reports on title for the assistance of the court tin its consideration of the plethora of Petitions for Declaration of Title based on prescription which are a recent phenomenon.
Most importantly it constitutes a violent contradiction amounting to a lie by the words that appear in so many conveyances and documents of title “as shown and defined on a plan by ‘x’ Sworn Land Surveyor deposited in the deeds Registry ‘x’ date”. Those words would now constitute a plain mockery when the plans so deposited are made unavailable for public inspection.
Proper research on land titles in the absence of related cadastral plans is utterly impossible and such research a likely a waste of effort. Remember, the Deeds Registry is a public office of record!
An emergency as that noted above is without precedent and clearly demands the immediate intervention of the Minister and the Authority, hopefully culminating with a restoration of those plans to their proper legal location and a repentant Registrar.
I am comforted by the recent re-iteration by our Head of State of his intolerance of corruption as part of our national fabric. His words would have reminded and hopefully inspired those in charge of our Deeds Registry that the foremost enemy of the would-be corrupt is a true and accurate record operated and maintained by truly dedicated and properly educated personnel.
Yours faithfully,
Leon O Rockcliffe