Hundreds of people's land books lost: Lessons in land management

(Baonghean) - The fact that people in hamlets 6 and 7, Dien Thang commune, have "lost" their Land Use Rights Certificates for more than 17 years is true and if there were no policy to issue new red books, the matter would not have been "exploded". So what is the cause and who caused the loss, needs to be clarified. We see that this is a lesson in land management...

To find out the reason for the "loss" of hundreds of Land Use Rights Certificates of people in hamlets 6 and 7, Dien Thang commune, Dien Chau district, first, we need to look back at the period from 1994 to 1997 in this locality.At that time, Dien Thang commune was known as the province's "hot spot" for complaints and denunciations. Afterwards, the interdisciplinary inspection established by the province clarified a series of violations, notably violations related to land. These violations included: collecting land taxes from people higher than the tax rate prescribed by the State; granting and selling residential land to people without approval from competent authorities, violating the Land Law with an area of ​​53,623m2; the actual area of ​​some land lots for sale was different from the commune's land records.

For example, Mr. Ta Hoa's household, hamlet 7 - a former commune cadastral officer, bought land in 1994, the area approved by the Dien Thang Commune Land Review Council was 210m2, the actual measured area was 220m2, the difference compared to the approved records was 10m2; Mr. Le Lan's household, former committee member, in charge of commune culture, a member of the land measurement board in 1994, the area according to the cadastral books was 280m2, the actual measured area was 297.5m2, the difference compared to the cadastral books was 17.5m2 (at the time of inspection, these men had built houses on the land)... In addition, the People's Committee of Dien Thang commune also lacked a sense of responsibility and was arbitrary in implementing Decree 64/CP such as arbitrarily preparing a dossier to submit to the Chairman of the District People's Committee to include some areas of land sold without authority in the Land Use Rights Certificate, leading to many errors; Land records management; land management is not strict. Specifically, when allocating land, boundary markers are not set for each household; there is no land allocation record with map excerpt...

In the Notice on handling complaints No. 324/TB/UB.KT of the Provincial People's Committee dated November 12, 2001, in addition to detailing the violations, it affirmed that "the responsibility belongs to the Party Committee, People's Council, People's Committee of the commune, the Management Board of Dien Thang Cooperative and the Land Office of Dien Chau district for lax management of land, arbitrarily selling land, lacking a sense of responsibility in inspection, urging and performing tasks. In particular, the Party Committee and People's Council of the commune included the content of selling land to people in the Party Resolution and the Resolution of the People's Council of the commune when it had not been approved by the competent authority and planned for residential land".

Because of "involvement" in violations, in 2002, a series of cadres of the Party Committee and the government of Dien Thang commune at that time were disciplined and dismissed; the Party Committee and the government apparatus were almost completely replaced. Up to this point, in addition to the issues that have been clarified by the interdisciplinary inspectorate, people have also reported related violations such as the commune selling land without authority, collecting money from people without paying the budget, not having receipts and documents... Because of those violations, Ms. Chu Thi Tron in Hamlet 6, Ms. Nguyen Thi Chi in Hamlet 7... "accused" us that, although the commune had "collected money 3 times" to make the cover, many Dien Thang households who bought land along National Highway 7 since 1994 have not yet been granted Land Use Rights Certificates. Through checking the Land Use Rights Certificates issued around 1997 that some people kept, it clearly shows the carelessness and irresponsibility of the commune-level government leading to unacceptable mistakes. And the mistakes in names, no time, decision number, incorrect data information... make the Land Use Rights Certificate issued to the people invalid. The recall for correction is clearly necessary, "the commune has a policy, instructing the hamlet to recall" is completely reasonable. Although the incident has passed 17 years, the handover is unclear, but the main responsibility in this incident belongs to the commune leaders at that time.

Regarding land management, the issuance and revocation of Land Use Rights Certificates have led to "losses" although not due to the fault of the current Party Committee and government, but over the past many years, it is clear that the cadres of Dien Thang commune during this period knew (all transactions related to land titles for bank loans must be written in writing and the commune must sign and stamp them to confirm) but still did not find a way to resolve them, which also shows a lack of responsibility. We cannot use the reason that things happened in the "previous period" to justify our negligence and laxity in land management.

Here, it is also necessary to mention the role and responsibility of land management of Dien Chau district government. Mr. Ngo Dinh Tiu, Deputy Head of Dien Chau District Department of Natural Resources and Environment, explained: "The people in the department often rotate, from hamlet meetings to party cell meetings, have not seen any opinions from the people...", "The story of granting land certificates according to Decree 64, hamlets declare, communes grant simultaneously, so there are many errors and re-granting. Dien Thang is poor land, people do not borrow from banks much, people do not care much about the certificates. Only now, when implementing digital mapping for Dien Thang to issue and change the Land Use Right Certificate, this issue has arisen...". However, for many years, Dien Chau district still has officers of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in charge of the area and commune clusters (currently, in Dien Thang commune, there are also officers in charge). However, the "loss" of hundreds of red certificates of the people for 17 years has not been known??? It was only when the work of issuing and exchanging Land Use Rights Certificates encountered difficulties, leading to the inability to complete the work as planned (June 2014), that the Department of Natural Resources and Environment learned of the matter and "... directed the commune to establish a working group to clarify the matter."

The laxity of the authorities at all levels in land management over the years is clear, but in this matter, there is also a part of the people's fault. For more than 17 years, the Land Use Rights Certificate has not been returned. If they want to borrow money from the bank, they have to write a request for confirmation from the local government. They can borrow once a year with a loan amount of only about 10 million VND. However, people still do not care and wonder. Only when they are required to submit the Land Use Rights Certificate to issue a new Land Use Rights Certificate do they "panic" and search, wondering where their cover is. In particular, there are cases where people mortgage their Land Use Rights Certificate to the bank but do not remember, still report the loss, until the commune asks the bank to photocopy the land cover and send it back as a basis for issuing a new Land Use Rights Certificate, only then do they realize that it has been "forgotten".

Throughout this incident, it shows that the management of records and procedures related to land; the implementation of laws and policies related to land at the grassroots level still has too many shortcomings. This is a major obstacle to the implementation of the State's policies and guidelines. Specifically, the consequence is that the issuance and exchange of Land Use Right Certificates in Dien Thang commune is at a standstill. Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoan - a cadastral officer of Dien Thang commune also confirmed that up to 90% of households in hamlets 6 and 7 have lost their land use right certificates, many households have submitted reports of loss to the commune. Mr. Tran Van Minh (also a cadastral officer of the commune) complained: Due to historical reasons, the issue of granting red land certificates to people has not been resolved... Currently, for households with land certificates deposited at the bank and have paid both principal and interest, they can write a confirmation letter from the government to withdraw them; In case households have land titles mortgaged to banks but have not paid in full, they are requested to have the bank make a photocopy and send it to the commune as a basis for issuing a new Land Use Rights Certificate. As for cases where the Land Use Rights Certificate is lost, it is currently unknown how it will be resolved...!!!".

Where are hundreds of Land Use Rights Certificates of people in hamlets 6 and 7, Dien Thang commune "lost"? Who is responsible for this incident? To clarify, the authorities of Dien Chau district and Dien Thang commune need to quickly coordinate with relevant agencies to investigate and clarify. In addition, there should be a direction to soon resolve the issue of exchanging Land Use Rights Certificates for people to stabilize the situation at the grassroots level.

PV Group