Interview of Camille Nuamah, the World Bank Country Manager to "Koha" television

Q: You have a four year project with the Albanian government, what is this project all about?

Q: The overall goal of the long term land administration and management program is to facilitate the development of an efficient land and property markets through enhancing tenure security and improving land administration and management services. The specific objective of the project is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of land administration and urban management through enhancing tenure security, improving urban planning, land management and development control, supporting property valuation and taxation, and financing investments in urban infrastructure and services.

Note: (Loan/Credit by the World Bank: US$ 35 milion, project cost: US$ 60 milion. Co-financing: SIDA, Government of Japan, and Government of Albania and municipalities.The project has started in 2007 and will be closed in December 2010.)

Q: Part of this project is also the informatization of the Offices of immovable property registration. In your opinion what would be the impact of this system?

A: Related to the impact of this the informatization of the Offices of immovable property registration: a) it will reduce the average time to register property transaction from 47 to 10 days; b) the informatization process will help the municipalities to have evidence all properties and increase the annual property tax collection by about 10%, starting in the second year of the project.

Q: Another activity of the project is the registration of 500 000 property titles in urban areas. According to you what are some of the obstacles in this process?

The project will support the first registration of 500,000 urban properties, which is just over half of what is estimated to be without registration. This process of registration has been going on in the last decade, so the experience does exist in the country. Its simply a matter of time, personnel and resources because this process is quite complicated. It requires a team of topograhers and legal experts to assese and document boundaries which later have to be posted for public comment or claims. In the event there are competing claims the matter goes to the courts. There are 3064 cadaster zones in the country, 80% of rural have been completed, 131 urban of which only 29 have been completed. With 500,000 properties we may finish around 50.

Q: Do you think that four years (of the project) are sufficient for the digitalization of all property titles?

A: The project will finance data conversion, data improvement and the creation of digital archives of key property records. The project has Not foreseen the digitalization of all properties in four years. If things move faster at the Mid Term Review of the Project the Government and the Bank may speed up the digitalization process. There are some questions which will be addressed by the technical assistance on for registration automation including central versus local databases. But in addition to digitalization, the systems to enable more efficient access and queries to the information will have to be developed.

Q: It has happened that based on laws the same land has been restituted or sold to different owners by the state itself. Do you think that there is need to improve the legal framework in this respect?

A: Even as the legal framework is further developed and refined, the issue of information is critical. The lack of clear, accurate and readily accessible information on properties is often a major sources of mistakes. As well good public in about the details of each legal act and how it applies to properties is critical.

Q:What is your opinion about the process of accepting and restitution of properties in Albania?

A: Restitution is certainly an important issue to resolve in order to cultivate a vibrant land market in Albania. However, there is no internationally recognized standard practice for restitution of property rights if the initial taking of those rights was far in the past. Ultimately, whether to restitute or not is a sensitive decision which should be based on the will of the people in that country. It warrants high-level political process to reach a political consensus. As such the Bank has generally not actively bee involved in restitution programs around the world and has not been involved in funding of projects in which restitution is a major activity.

That said, while political consensus on restitution/compensation is yet to be reached by the Government of Albania, we are always willing to advise on legislation and practice, and to support the provision of instruments to strengthen information that goes into these processes.

Q: In your opinion does the lack of a proper solution to property issues has a negative impact to investments?

A: Security of property rights is a key element of a good business environment because it allows investors to reduce the level of risk involved in their undertakings. All investors manage risks as part of their investment process, but a good business environment which can lower risk to a point is critical.