Commissioner of State Lands complains of staff shortage

“I really mean dire,” Drakes said in response to MP for Moruga/ Tableland, Dr Lovell Francis.

“At this point in time today, I have no staff working on agricultural matters.

I just don’t have the staff. If I have to pull somebody else from another portfolio, just now I’m looking at my cleaners. I’m going to find out who has a degree and who I can teach because I’m in teaching mode.

“My OJTs (On The Job Trainees) have gone, all the technical staff have gone and all I have are administrative and maintenance staff with me. It’s really, really hard, but I am persevering nevertheless.” The committee met yesterday at the J Hamilton Maurice Room, Level 2, Tower D, to attain an insight into the allocation and the utilisation of State lands, and the policies and procedures regarding allocation and development particularly with respect to agricultural utilisation.

The objectives were also to examine the level of development of agricultural State lands for food production, to assess the suitability of land tenure arrangements for food production, to understand the key challenges in providing adequate lands for food production, to understand the relationship between the ministry and other stakeholders relevant to agricultural State lands.

Drakes said they did have approval for some of the positions, but the problem is getting them to come in as those people had to give adequate notice at their jobs before they could come on board.

Chairman of the committee, Independent Senator Stephen Creese, asked Acting Permanent Secretary, Angela Siew, what steps are being taken to utilise and develop the human resource potential available for the purposes of food production, as well to indicate some of the new initiatives that are being undertaken that would improve production.

She said one of their key critical challenges has been the lack of a comprehensive information management system and databases as it pertained to the utilisation of allocation of land for food production.

“We have been allocated $6.9 million to upgrade our IT (Information Technology) infrastructure, and also to improve on what we have as our information system in the ministry. We also have had allocation for the development of our land management system, as well as an electronic document management system.

We are also seeking to re-establish SALIS (State Agricultural Land Information System).

To this end, Siew informed the committee that they have engaged a director of IT to move these systems forward.

She said he was making an assessment of what their needs are, what they would like to see based on the policy they were creating, and also their new National Agricultural Sector Development Plan.