The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Private sector executives have challenged the Prime Minister's assertion that a shortage of land surveyors is impeding the Government's ability to issue Crown Land grants to Bahamians.

Dave Taylor, secretary of the Bahamas Association of Land Surveyors, said hiring qualified private land surveyors to assist with this task is a "simple process", Also a member of the Surveyors Board, he questioned Dr Hubert Minnis's assertion about a shortage given that it simply had to approach the private sector.

"Now I did not hear the comments in entirety," Mr Taylor said, "but as far as I know it can't be land surveyors holding it back. I don't see how that would be possible, because if the Government sends out a request for quotations (RFQ) for surveys, private surveying companies will respond. If the quotations are accepted then the private land surveyors carry out the work. If that was his comments, I really don't see how that can be.

"The reality is that the way the process should work is that Crown Land is usually carried out by government surveyors - Crown Land surveyors - and if there are not sufficient government surveyors then a RFQ is sent out to private surveyors.

"Once they respond they have to vet those and, once they approve somebody for it, then you mobilise the team and then the work is done. So that's a simple process whether in the public sector or private."

Donald Thompson, chief executive of Donald E Thompson & Associates, echoed these sentiments by adding: "I don't think there is a lack of land surveyors. I don't think he [the Prime Minister] has all the information he needs with respect to this matter.

"He needs to get with the Bahamas Association of Land Surveyors, and the surveyor-general, and sit us all down and find out exactly how many surveyors he needs to assist him with this urgent matter of land grants. He needs to sit with the president of the Land Surveyors Association and the Land Surveyors' Board, and we will resolve all the matters he is concerned about."

Dr Minnis, upon his return from a CARICOM (Caribbean Community) meeting in Barbados, last week urged private surveyors to call his office for work.

"We have one challenge, because we want to issue land to Bahamians," he said. "We have the land available, but we have the greatest challenge with surveyors. We don't have sufficient and that's holding back this government giving land grants to many young people and Bahamians who have applied."

Suggesting that there may even be persons within government blocking the private sector from getting such work, the Prime Minister continued: "We want to give the land to the Bahamian population, but we can't give it because we don't have sufficient surveyors and there are individuals who are hogging up this knowledge and don't want Bahamians to get the land.

"But they will get it and we are recruiting surveyors. All private surveyors who are out there in the private sector kindly call the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday so we can hire you so that these Bahamians can get their land. They're waiting for it, we've promised and we cannot deliver because we cannot survey the land, so we're recruiting."

Damian Sands, an associate at quantity surveying company, DHP Associates, said: "Those people [surveyors] need time to do their work. They don't work by cost of square foot' they measure and they price.

"Land surveyors need time to do whatever they need to do. They have to get there, they have to measure, they have to make their reports. These things don't happen on a dime if we are talking about land surveying."