The investment made in the newly created Grenada Lands Agency permitted the digitization of maps and computerization of processes, with the bulk of some 170,000 registration documents from the 1930’s made available online as a customer service. To support job and small business creation, the Government also supported the development of entrepreneurial skills of population.
Challenge
Several agencies, with no efficient information sharing system, were involved in land registration. Citizens were required to spend time dealing with each agency. Land registries were done manually and kept in hard copies. The high humidity had damaged the documentation because of inappropriate location and poor condition of the Office of the State Registrar and inadequate conservation of material. Information technologies to create, keep, share, and retrieve information were not available. The opportunities for Grenadians were scarce.
Approach
With the support of the World Bank, the Grenadian Government improved its public service delivery by setting up and modernizing the Grenada Lands Agency, upgrading its processes and technology, as well as digitizing services. Additionally, all departments that constituted the Grenada Lands Agency were connected through fiber-optic lines to allow for information sharing. The quality of land survey, registration, and spatial planning improved radically, benefitting citizens and businesses.
Results
The Grenada Public Sector Modernization project supported improvements in several key areas related to efficiency in public service delivery:
- The number of days needed to register a business and receive a company certificate declined from 10-20 to 1-2 days. Bills of sale are filled and registered in one day.
- The number of days to complete all property registration activities decreased from 77 days to 47 days.
- The number of days to register deeds decreased from 60 days to 30 days.
