News - MCA-Benin and CNAO-TF on field visit to follow up activities under Land Titles project

The National Coordination of MCA-Benin conducted from August 25 through August 29, 2010, a mission for supervising the collection of records and evidences as part of the project aimed at transforming Certificates of Occupancy into Land Titles in 20 communes in Benin. All teams committed to these operations in the twelve departments nationwide have been visited by the delegation of the National Coordination of MCA-Benin comprising the Chair of MCA-Benin, the interim National Coordinator, the Assistant Resident Representative of MCC to Benin and the President of National Steering Commission for Land Titles Attribution (CNAO-TF).

Delegates first went to Porto-Novo, the capital city of Benin were they enjoyed a warm welcome by the Mayor Moukaram Océni and his Council. The work session that followed enabled Mr. Jude Houétognankou, Head of the Land and Property Directorate at Porto-Novo Municipality, to report on the progress in land papers and evidences collection. "We are granted 3621 land titles in the city of Porto-Novo, and yet only 60 applications have been recorded by our staff though over 2500 application sheets were distributed", he emphasized. A very poor rate according to the interim National Coordinator of MCA-Benin. Samuel Batcho steadily urged the Mayor and his team into improving the score without a delay.

For the Mayor, several reasons that explain such a low rate in gathering records and other evidences of land ownership. "The alleged owners live mostly in Cotonou or abroad and are not well informed about what we are doing here. More, there are many who do not have the required documents to-date. Some even equate the collection process to a census of land owners for tax purposes and thus refused to register. Besides, many certificates of occupancy have been used as collaterals for loans with microfinance institutions. Mr. Océni also pointed out the limited communication efforts in this collection operation and pledged for an extension of the deadline.

Other places, same notice

After Porto-Novo, the mission was to Pobè, Abomey, Dassa-Zoume, Parakou, Kandi, Natitingou and Djougou. Even though in the last 3 locations the figures provided about the process were somewhat high, the delegation recorded very low rates in most communes. Some reasons for this are loss of administrative papers, applicants' lack of identity documents, reluctance by the fear of new land taxes, deficiency of communication, short duration for the collection process etc.

To cope with the situation, various corrective measures have been proposed by the delegation of MCA-Benin. Among other decisions, the deadline for submitting applications has been extended to one more week. Also, applicants whose land papers are deposited with microfinance institutions will be identified and granted receive a waiver which shall be studied by all those involved in the process. Those with expired identity documents are now accepted if they are legalized...

The acting National Coordinator of MCA-Benin renewed the commitment of the Program to support involved municipalities in their communication endeavors. He finally urged populations to come out massively to earn at a reduced cost land titles, which are the only irrevocable and indefeasible land ownership evidence in Benin.