CCAC probe finds no wrongdoing on gov’t reclamation of expired land concessions

The Commission Against Corruption’s (CCAC) investigation report on the reclamation of 74 idle land parcels with expired concessions by the government resulted in the acknowledgment that there was no wrongdoing on the government side on the application of the Land Law.

According to the investigation ordered over two years ago by the previous government on the suspicions of wrong application of the law on the land parcels reclamation, the procedure of reclaiming the 74 land plots did not involve any abuse or illegality, the corruption watchdog stated in its final report published yesterday.

CCAC’s report states that suspicions  were “unfounded and cannot be used as justification to promote an amendment to the Land Law.”

The report goes a little further and states that the rules in place did not suffer a significant change when the amendment of the land law was made, noting that what motivated the reclamation of the land parcels from 2015 was mostly a change of attitude by the government authorities to abide the law more strictly so as to “put the order in the chaos.”

In the investigation report, the bureau also points the finger at the previous DSSOPT management and operations for not enforcing the existing regulations that allowed the reclamation of idle land plots.

“[DSSOPT] did not implement in due time, the existing legal regime did not fulfill its responsibilities to take the initiative to inspect and monitor the [concessionaires] compliance with the provisional land concession contracts, nor did follow up on time on situations in which the land parcels could meet conditions to be recovered by the Administration,” the CCAC states.

In response to the CCAC report, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário, issued a statement noting the report’s conclusions and recommendations saying that the Secretariat already gave instructions to the services to “reflect on the issues highlighted, as well as to make every effort to improve the land management mechanism to allow the most appropriate and effective use of the land resources, under the law provisions.”