Complaints about the delivery of services by the lands department is quickly slowing down after Hon. Hugo Patt took over the affairs at the ministry.

During his press conference on Monday, Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow commended the minister and noted that there has been a, “spectacular turnaround… and which has certainly helped to move commerce forward over the last few months.”

According to the Prime Minister, the work at the ministry has been able to create economic activity in terms of collection of revenues by the department.

Hon. Patt explained that the turnaround has been as a result of focusing on initiatives taken to refocus the ministry. He noted that the first order of business was to meet with staff and support staff. He said that the work then proceeded to implement work that was already being done by former ministers. They simply picked up from the work that had already been done before and reallocated resources and reorganize the ministry. Hon. Patt says that work load was organized to allow for processes to be smoother.

He then commended the staff whom he described as “excellent and dedicated,” where some stay late in the evening. Of course he explained that the work has had some impact on the staff with and increase of work load often causing visits to doctors.

So far there have been 7,500 lease applications signed and 13,000 instruments which have impact on the commercial sector being processed. And while there have been so many done, Hon. Patt cited that there is still a lot to be done.