Ramallah – Hasna Rantisi – Palestine Economy Portal

Palestinian LWSC’s president Musa Shakarna said: “the land registery started in 2006 and continues in cooperation with local authorities; their goal is to level all Palestinian territories (A, B, C), explaining that 250 thousand dunums have been registered since the establishment of the Commission and a total of 700,000 dunums were surveyed during the same period.

He assured during an interview with “PECDAR” that the land registery is considered a national project that has received political attention especially because it includes Areas classified as “C” which make up the essence of the current and the upcoming conflict with the Israeli Occupation.

Importance of the Project

Shakarna explained that the importance of the project lies in many ways, which is: preventing the diversion of land and giving the citizens the necessary papers to defend and protect their lands.

He assured that the registered land may not be sold, mortgaged or disposed of in any way, except through the Land Authority. Adding that, if the operation is done outside this scope, then it is invalid, thus ending the chaos processes so that all operations are monitored within the land authority.

From the Social aspect, land registry achieves civil peace by ending land conflicts and marginalized groups such as women and expatriates take full rights.     

He added that the land registry encourages planning and investment “investment in areas that don’t have land registry is hard because investors usually avoid taking risks in areas where there is no guarantee of land.”

Shakarna added that land registry betters the tax collection process through an application for a patent in cases of sale or purchase. But he assured that the land registry “does not entail any new taxes.”

Registered Spaces.. 2019 Predictions

Shakarna explained that the West Banks’ area is 5.8 million dunum, 32% of it was registered by the Jordanian Authority before 1967. 3.6 million dunums of the West Banks’ area needs to be surveyed.

In terms of registered areas, he said that the land authority was able to register 50 thousand dunums of the remaining area in the West Bank which is 3.6 million dunums before the establishment of the Palestinian LWSC.

He added that after the establishment of LWSC in 2006, the commission was able to register 250 thousand dunums in all Palestinian Lands (A, B, C) while 700 thousand dunums were surveyed.

He predicted that the survey would exceed 1 million dunums by the end of 2019 and would be ready for issuing the registration bonds.

Shakarna assured that after the land registry is completed, unregistered financial land will not remain as well as the registered lands which will not be registered again.  

Land Registry is Mandatory process

Shakarna said that the land registry is a binding government process “when announcing land registry in a certain town, it is announced publicly noting that whoever does not register his land or include his land in the land registry, his land will be registered on behalf of the state and does not belong to the citizen.”

Shakarna denied the existence of registration fees, but the government does take 5 Jordanian Dinars when the registration is issued. He noted that the government used to take 1% of the value of the registered property but it has canceled the decision.

He added that the municipality bears the expenses of the survey; which is considered part of the settlement procedure, noting that it bears the expenses and takes from the citizen a small price in return as they have agreed on.

He assured that every situation regarding the lands is treated separately, explaining that anyone who has a claim to the ownership of the land must submit a claim to the Land Authority, which is working on its study through competent advisors.

He added that the problems that arise during the registration process go to a private court; which is a land settlement court; it has a judge looking over the cases within certain procedures easily and quickly.

National Bank to secure information

Shakarna said that he is working on the establishment of a national bank for land information with the goal of archiving all information, as well as saving copies of records in a bank, and store information on sites outside the department in the Ministry of IT.

He noted that he proposed a study regarding storing information outside of the country.

From a another aspect, Shakarna pointed out “land settlement” (“tasweyati”) application in which the citizen can search up his land and track any information or any changes in the records regarding his land. The land owner will also get a SMS on his phone. But he did point out that the application has some technical issues in the present time that must be fixed in order for the application to be accessible to all.

Shakarna pointed out the department’s intention to purchase licensed legal programs that are characterized by high safety which allows citizens, at home and abroad, to use it.

The biggest obstacle is the Occupation

Shakarna assured that the biggest obstacle for the LWSC is the occupation where the survey teams are being harassed by the occupation since the goal of the LWSC is to register Area “C” lands, which are considered to be the essence of the current and future conflict, pointing that 56% of the Land authority’s work is being done in Area “C”.   

Shakarna pointed out a problem regarding the scarcity of the National Authority’s possibilities. The land authority suffers from lack of funding as a result of the austerity policy, although the settlement is a project supported by the president and the government.