Octavio Sànchez, President Maduro's main advisor on the Property Law, told Revistazo.com that the bill introduced for the new Property Law for the Promotion of the Economy conforms 100 percent with the demands made by civil society groups, including small farmer organizations who are questioning the real effects of the law.

Sànchez confirmed that the law will be discusses at the end of the current Congressional session ending on January 20, 2004.

He denied that the process is being rushed by pressure from international institutions who are making the approval of the law a condition for signing a Letter of Intention with President Maduro.

With this new legislation the government is proposing that all land tenancy problems in urban and rural areas be resolved within 15 years. This would be very important for Honduras, where 80 percent of the population lives in conditions of poverty. Government officials believe that poverty is exacerbated when thousands of citizens cannot reap the benefits of property ownership because of the lack of legal documentation. They also point out that this problem greatly weakens the middle class.

"The objective of this law is basically to create conditions in Honduras to expand the middle class from a small minority of the population to the vast majority of Hondurans," said Sànchez. "The law provides a response to this problem," he maintained.

As an example he pointed out that the law proposes a method of responding to illegal occupations of public land and the spurious ownership claims made by many individuals.

"So, here we have created a mechanism of validating or cancelling property transactions as appropriate in an ordered manner," he explained.

He went on to say that the new process would be administered by a government body dependant on the President and not by a decentralized entity as proposed by many civil society organizations interested in the topic.

"The organization would depend on the hierarchy of a superior, but it would be technically, administratively and financially independent," he explained.

He believes such a body would facilitate the process since the land tenancy problems require quick decisions and the process can be guaranteed at the highest level of government.

Furthermore, he said that the proposed structure would guarantee the participation of social sectors through a mechanism that will be created for that purpose. It will be called the National Center for Social Policy and Norms and there will be representatives for urban neighbourhoods, small farmers, professional organizations, indigenous and ethnic groups and other sectors of the Honduran people to supervise the process and make sure it is done with the greatest transparency," he said.

In response to concerns from small farmer groups, Sànchez said that the bill maintains aspects like a title search in the process of legalizing properties, although he did recognize that they will be treating private documents as valid in dealing with property ownership.

"What happens in this law is a recognition of what happens in the real world. It is recognizing that the majority of Hondurans make property transactions with simple private documents that are never brought before a notary or a judge to be registered. People just keep these documents in a place they consider secure," explained Sànchez.

"So what we are creating is a process to legally register these properties while taking into account these private documents to determine ownership and to issue legal titles," he added.

He believes the process will be secure and that there will be sufficient regulation to prevent individuals or institutions from appropriating property with false documents.

Among these controls Sànchez listed occupants' rights and limits on the amount of property that can be claimed in urban and rural areas.

Sànchez expressed confidence that the law will be approved in this legislative session without major changes since the party leaders in Congress are in agreement and have offered their support to the bill.

He assured the public that the approval of the new law "is not linked to the signature of the Letter of Intentions with the IMF or with the interests of international institutions. This is simply an initiative being taken by the government to provide necessary solutions to the land tenancy problem, which is probably the most serious social problem we are facing now as a developing country."

According to studies, the value of unregistered property in Honduras is as much or more than 14 billion dollars-"money that could reactivate the economy and create the conditions for a growing middle class," said Sànchez.

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