St Vincent and the Grenadines plans to ease property transactions with digital ID

The Unity Labour Party (ULP) – the ruling political party in St Vincent and the Grenadines – has reiterated the importance of a digital transformation plan the country is currently pursuing, saying it will facilitate a wide range of processes in including land and property transactions.

In an opinion for St Vincent Times, the government party says a single window land and property transactions project is among the projects to be implemented under the Caribbean Digital Transformation Project (CARDTP), a World Bank-supported initiative involving regional neighbours Dominica, Grenada, and St Lucia.

Last year, Finance Minister Camilo Gonsalves told lawmakers efforts were being made to begin a digital ID pilot this year using the MOSIP platform. Now, the ruling party says a civil registration and national ID modernization project is about to commence, which is “pivotal for all other digital transformation projects.” Once digital ID is available, “online access to various services will become standardized and secured.”

The single land and property window, the party says, will “integrate digitally all the relevant land management activities and allow users the online tools to carry out their land and property transaction activities.”

The government says it has high regard for the project given that land is an important resource in the country which has to be managed properly, as the current land management system in the country is “inefficient, cumbersome, time-consuming, and costly.”

It says the project will include the creation of “a digital based mapping of the country of every parcel of land,” which “allows for land records to be digitized and updated,” and the “complete digitization of each parcel of land, those with deeds and those without.”

Apart from land and property management, the political party also argues that the digital ID and broader digital transformation project will enable or facilitate several other things including the putting in place of a digital government system that will simplify the delivery of public services, digital trade facilitation, tax management information system, digital payments, and the civil status registration system, among others.

The ruling party, in the opinion, also teases opposition political figures saying while they “salivate for political power with no ideas for SVG’s development, the ULP continues to be creative, proactive, and developmental in the people’s interest.”

Article Topics

Caribbean  |  Caribbean Digital Transformation Project (CARDTP)  |  digital government  |  digital ID  |  land registry  |  St. Vincent and the Grenadines