BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN order to ensure the speedy distribution of land for residential purposes, the government will establish a National Land Sales Agency (NLSA).
Set to come into effect on June 1, the NLSA will be the focal agency for residential land distribution on St. Kitts. It will utilise manpower from the Privatisation Unit, National Housing Corporation, Department of Land and Surveys, Legal Department and the Inland Revenue Department.
Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Denzil Douglas divulged the NLSA’s impending existence at his monthly press conference on Wednesday (May 27). According to Douglas, who is also the Minister of Lands, the NLSA is a response to the concern shared by many at the slow pace of land distribution.
With the launch of the NLSA, all information concerning land applications will be resident in one office. Douglas noted the decision to establish the agency came at a time when the government was using land distribution as an economic stimulus package.
“The government has taken a decision to use land distribution, especially among low-income and middle-income people, as our economic stimulus package. We want to be able to provide land to those who have applied. When someone builds a home it stimulates the construction sector, thus increasing economic activity within that sector, which for the last 10 or so years has been majorly responsible for growth and development in St. Kitts and Nevis,” he informed.
Calling the initiative an “important, significant development”, the Prime Minister stressed that every citizen should be entitled to 4 000 square feet of land for residential purposes, and that with the August 2007 launch of the Special Land Distribution Initiative (SLDI), more house lots were made available than at any other time in the nation’s history.
“The SLDI has taken land distribution to a higher and different level. We are hoping to be able to distribute 600 acres of land to 5 000 target persons. However, to date, we have only distributed 1 000 of that 5 000 we indicated was available. So, it is the responsibility of every citizen to respond to the programme,” said Douglas.
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