The Leader of Government Business, Hon Kurt Tibbetts has said the pace of development in the Cayman Islands is connected to delays at the Lands & Survey Department.

In the last two weeks, the demands made by the high rate of development in certain areas of the economy here have come up for discussion on different occasions.

At the last Media Briefing by Cabinet Ministers Mr Tibbetts said the high rate of development and construction was challenging the Lands & Survey Department.

He said that despite the new technological advancements recently put in place at that Department, more investment is needed for the Department to be considered efficient.

The connection between what has been frequently referred to as Cayman's "high rate of development" and, the Lands & Survey Department, is implicit.

The construction industry in Cayman has been going through a boom period for some years especially since Grand Cayman's post-Hurricane Ivan rebuilding process began in 2004.

The Lands & Survey Department and the Planning Department are primary hubs for the intense construction activity.

The Lands and Survey Department is part of the Ministry of District Administration, Planning, Agriculture and Housing and comprises five main sections linked by a common dealing and involvement in land.

The Department comprises the Land Registry section, which has all title records; the Land Survey section, which carries out all Government survey work and regulates surveying practice; the Valuation section that values and manages land; the Geographical Information System (GIS) Production section, providing cartographic and database management services; and, the GIS Development section.

GIS involves the conversion of map, tabular and image format data from manuscript to digital format.

It also includes the management of geographical information and provides an array of tools for query and analysis - based on comprehensive data integration.

GIS has become the centre around which challenging environmental and developmental issues are being addressed - not only in Cayman, but, worldwide.

Managing information in such a system as GIS has provided the Department, other Government Departments, and, the private sector, with a faster and more efficient means of carrying out their work.

The amount of money that has poured into Government's coffers as a result of the construction-industry boom is one of the most significant items of proof of the heavy demand for service and outputs from Lands & Survey and others connected to the construction industry.

Less than a month ago Financial Secretary, Hon Kenneth Jefferson provided information from Cayman's final Annual Economic Report figures for 2004 and 2005 that proved that the construction industry was the new key player in the economy during those two years - even surpassing the input of the tourism industry.

On 28 July 2006, in the Legislative Assembly, Mr Jefferson spoke about domestic economic performance during these past two years and, what he described as "the recovery that took place in 2005."

Against that background he revealed that the construction industry and, the financial sector, were the two high-performance partners in the economy during that period.

Describing 2004 as an "exceptional" year for the construction sector, he explained that in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, building permits more than doubled - moving from $142 million in 2004 to $336.8 million in 2005.

Also significantly boosting the performance of that industry, were Planning Approvals - an item that exceeded the half-a-billion mark - settling at $550 million for the first time.

Mr Jefferson said, "Sectors related to construction and real estate" also contributed to what he described as a "quick turn-around (in the economy) in the past two years."

Real Estate was vibrant over the period - showing of a significant 32.2 per cent increase in the volume of transfers.

Coupled with an increase of 5.3 per cent in the average value of the transfers, the Real Estate sector showed 2004 and 2005 figures moving from $339.2 million to $450.8 million in 2005.

All these activities are connected with the L&S Department at some point.

The pressure on construction-related Departments to keep up a fast pace of growth and performance was clearly seen when news of severe backlogs in the Planning Department began making headlines last year.

The extent of the Planning Department problem resulted in personnel assistance being brought in from overseas, whilst a major Department audit was in train to identify the permanent changes needed to get the Department managing the increased workload.

The construction of the construction sector to the Government purse more than justifies the improvements made so far in the L&S Department, but, according to Mr Tibbetts, more are needed.

At the 11 August media briefing Mr Tibbetts had announced the Department's new Survey Research Room and Survey Tracking System - both geared towards speeding up the work that Licensed Land Surveyors must do in researching former documents relating to a survey, on one hand, and in tracking the status of current jobs in the department, on the other.

Mr Tibbetts had also spoken about the first-in-the-Caribbean real-time, Internet-to-cell phone facility - enabling Surveyors to receive corrections to surveys through a cell phone, instead of via a radio receiver.

He also mentioned the Islands' "substantial investment in GPS technology", which provides the Cayman Islands with real-time, 24 hour a day island-wide GPS data, accurate to decimals of an inch.

However, Mr Tibbetts said that it was only with "continued investment in technology, infrastructure and human resources (that) the Department (would) continue to improve its efficiency."

Mr Tibbetts not only said that technological additions were need to bring the Department up to mark but he also revealed that staff additions were necessary as well.

He said that currently only the Chief Surveyor, Grant Vincent, is qualified to check the documents of the six private licensed land surveyors on the Island.

Mr Tibbetts said that Mr Vincent is training two more surveyors. However, these persons will not be considered to be qualified until the end of the 2006/7 Year.

Other staff increases are needed for the L&S Department's speed-up process and Mr Tibbetts revealed this when he said, "Despite the increase in the demands on the Department in the past years, human resources hadn't changed in ten to twenty years.

"The Ministry recognised this urgent need and allotted funds" for new staff.

Mr Tibbetts said that two new Surveyors would be working by November. He also said that more valuations staff would be added to those already recently hired and efforts were being made to locate two new GIS technicians.

Government departments are not the only areas of the economy recently identified as being pressured by Cayman's rapid development.

Recently residents and Government Ministers alike have said that the Islands' rapid growth is linked to the Immigration problems with which Cayman was now wrestling - such as the high number of expatriate workers here, Caymanians being squeezed out of the job market and cultural domination by persons and morŽs that are not Caymanian.