Cadastral Systems Re-engineering in Urban Zimbabwe

Land is undoubtedly the most important resource in any country as it contributes to economic development. The cadastre is a component of the land administration system (LAS) that is crucial for managing land. It is thus of importance for a nation to have both a functional cadastral system for determining parcel boundaries and a functional cadastral information system, for managing the land parcels. The cadastral survey system and cadastre in Zimbabwe are largely manual with even the lodgement of completed surveys for examination and approval still analogue. This has an impact on the time it takes to complete a land transaction. Land can ideally drive the economy yet part of the value is lost due to lengthy land transaction procedures. The land administration system is supposed to consist of value adding processes in which several actors interact in a workflow which creates new or transfers parcels. This workflow is associated with transaction costs, part of which can be employed for maintenance of the cadastral information system. This article presents business processes for the land development process in Zimbabwe but focusing on City of Gweru (CoG) and City of Mutare (CoM) municipalities as the major organisations under study. Municipalities in Zimbabwe are governed by the Regional Town and Country Planning Act, so such a single process and workflow model can fit into the cadastral information system of all municipalities in Zimbabwe with insignificant changes. The broader scope of this study is towards the design of a conceptual schema for automating the land administration system and particularly, the cadastre component, for municipalities in Zimbabwe. This study presents the workflows for the current land development system with CoG and CoM as the current focal points. Information on current automation efforts or reforms by other major municipalities to include Bulawayo, Kadoma and Kariba is also presented. The overall theme of this paper is to discuss cadastral reform through automation of cadastral processes in municipalities