Lands and Surveys Commission looks to competitive bidding
DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, December 18, 2018
The Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC) is encouraging transparency in its bidding process allowing for best practices within the industry.
According to the agency’s Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer, Trevor Benn, this process allows the agency to garner revenue but also ensures that all businesses stand to benefit as no favouritism can occur during such a process.
Benn made the remark during the commission’s end-of-the-year media briefing on Monday morning. “We have also introduced a system where those who can afford to pay, we encourage them to pay more for the land on a competitive basis… We have opted to work with these people who have found it necessary to work with us to improve our revenue collection.”
In spite of the GL&SC being a semi-autonomous body, the agency was given $163M for capital works with $150M supplementary for salaries in the 2019 Budget. The estimated expenditure for the agency in 2019 stands at $1.5Billion.
As of November 30, the agency had achieved 97 per cent of its estimated target of $850M for 2018.
In the meantime, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, during the consideration of estimates for the 2019 National Budget on December 10, said the transition of the GL&SC to becoming an independent agency is a work in progress:
“The sums that are allocated from the state will go down, this year it’s less next year it is going to be less because we believe the Lands and Surveys Commission is under better management.”
Anara Khan.
Images: Jules Gibson & Keno George.