Commissioner of Lands ups the heat on illegal land dealings
COMMISSIONER of Lands, Alan McNeil, has upped the heat on fixing fraudulent land dealings, revealing a middleman network exists for identifying prime land that is available in Honiara.
The network, he said, engages in forging the necessary documents and gets these registered to a foreign company, which they think would be prepared to pay them back for the title.
“Clearly there is a middle-man network which identifies prime land that is available, then forges the necessary documents and gets these registered to a foreign company who they think would be prepared to pay them back for the land title,” Mr. McNeil told Solomon Star.
“It’s a strange and risky approach to get the title registered to a company before that company has even paid for the land.
“It has backfired in both cases for these middle-men. The only way I can stop such dealings in the future is for the Registrar of Titles staff to commit to checking my spreadsheet before accepting grant instruments. Staff in the RoT Office is still continuing to defy my directions to do this,” he said.
The Commissioner made the comments in a post-mortem-like assessment of two recent cases allegedly involving the middleman network. In both cases, the Commissioner said his signature was forged in signing the transfer.
The seal was also not genuine, he said.
His revelation of fraudulent dealings in both cases this week has caused a stand-off between the Commissioner’s office and that of the Registrar of Titles, resulting in both offices trading accusations.
The Commissioner insists the only way to put an end to fraudulent land dealings in terms of transfers of FTEs is for officers in the RoT to check his spreadsheet before registering transfers.
Meanwhile, Commissioner McNeil said he was appreciative of the cooperation shown by Good Guest Ltd in surrendering its FTE.
“The company Good Guest Limited was very cooperative and had no issues at all in surrendering back the Fixed Term Estate. They admitted they had not even paid for the land,” Mr. McNeil said this week.
Good Guest Ltd is the second foreign-owned company, which has been forced by the Commissioner’s revelation to return or surrender the FTE registered in its name.
AJ General Hardware Ltd is the first to surrender its title after the Office of the Commissioner uncovered irregularities, including claims the Commissioner’s signature on the transfer was forged.
The company is owned by a Mr. Aron Dawen ZHENG, a naturalised Solomon Islands citizen of Chinese descent.
By Alfred Sasako
Honiara Newsroom