New state project leads to promised land

A EUR 1.88 million project is currently being implemented by the Romanian National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration (ANCPI) to improve its capacity to produce geographical information and thus contribute to a more secure real estate market for investors and individuals alike.

Simona Bazavan

“After twenty years of incoherent application of a property law that has also often been changed, we unfortunately find ourselves in the situation where the surface area owned according to the property deeds that have been issued over the years is larger than Romania’s actual surface area,” Elena Udrea, the Romanian minister for regional development and tourism, previously stated.

The minister stressed that Romania’s lack of a general cadastre makes it very hard to implement large-scale investment projects. Investors too, especially those in real estate and agriculture, have been calling for such a measure for a long time.

The ANCPI is currently implementing a EUR 1.88 million project to improve its capacity to supply geographical information and overall upgrade the services it provides, both to other public institutions as well as to individuals and the private sector. Indirectly, the project will also contribute to the larger plan of a general cadastre, although so far concrete steps have yet to follow the authorities’ announced intentions.

The institution, which has recently passed from under the authority of the Ministry of Administration and Interior to the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism (MDRT), is the Romanian authority in the field of cadastre and land registration.

The Land Administration Knowledge Improvement (LAKI) project will be 51.06 percent financed through SEE (European Economic Area) Grants offered by Norway along with Iceland and Lichtenstein. The remainder is financed from the state budget and the deadline for implementing the project is the end of April 2012.

Turning the map digital

LAKI’s main objective is to consolidate the ANCPI’s capacity to produce geographical information for both internal use and for meeting the requirements of the INSPIRE Directive issued by the EU, by setting up the National Mapping Center.

The present version of the official map of Romania was published back in 1986. Today, under the EU’s INSPIRE directive Romania and all the member states have to create digital maps that will be part of a general infrastructure for spatial information in Europe.

The result will be a comprehensive digital map that can be used by all public institutions in Romania to add information from their specific fields such as infrastructure-related data or in-depth information about the state of existing farmland.

Ileana Spiroiu, deputy general director of the ANCPI and director of the National Center for Geodesy, Cartography, Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (CNGCFT), which will be transformed in the National Mapping Center, told BR that the LAKI project’s target was to train ANCPI personnel in order to improve quality control over the geospatial data it collects and to gain the necessary knowhow to create derived maps.

While the ANCPI has already collected information on a vast number of features – from data about the road and railway infrastructure to rivers, lakes and irrigation channels, forests, the territorial limits of localities, and so on – its experts had to be trained on how to make derived maps.

“In order to take a map that has a scale of 1 to 5,000 and take it to let’s say 1 to 1 million or 1 to 500, meaning to make derived maps to large and small scales, the procedures are extremely work intensive. There isn’t an automated procedure through some sort of computer software. Almost 80 percent of the procedures are done by hand and one needs to have a set of unique rules and symbols in order for all those involved to do the same operations,” explained Spiroiu. At the end, the ANCPI will publish a catalogue with all the conventional symbols used in mapping that will later be turned into a mandatory framework. “We are not the only ones in Romania to make maps. We are actually the authority that formalizes the maps and by having this official catalogue, private companies will also have access to it and benefit from it,” she added.

ANCPI employees received training from Association Geofoto, a Croatian company, and Local Geotop2001. Technical support for quality assurance was provided by two partner institutions – Statens Kartverk and Registers Iceland.

In addition to improving the ANCPI’s capacity to produce geographical information, the LAKI project will also mean the creation of two additional bodies within the institution, a study center and training center. The ANCPI Study Center was necessary in order to improve the institution’s capacity to carry out studies and research activities as well as to be up to date with recent developments in this field in Europe, said Doina Palangean, LAKI project coordinator and director of the international cooperation and public procurement departments.

The ANCPI staff training center is the first of its kind for the institution. “It was a real necessity for us as in many cases there are no public or private educational and training institutions that can prepare people in our very specific fields,” said Simona Panduru, counselor to the general director of the ANCPI. She added that the centers will be a good way to use the knowhow accumulated by the institution’s employees over the years.

The center will provide the means to continuously train the staff. “For example, the major changes brought by the new Civil Code to the manner in which properties are tabulated – without the center, it wouldn’t be possible to give the necessary training,” added Palangean. Some 15 employees have been tutored to hold classes, and textbooks will be edited. While admitting that this is not enough for the requirements of the entire institution and all its county offices, ANCPI representatives say that this is only the beginning. As part of the project, the agency will also acquire videoconferencing equipment.

The ANCPI chose to apply for the SEE Grants after having previously collaborated with its institutional counterpart in Norway, Victor Grigorescu, director of the agency’s project management department, told BR.

“SEE Grants are only one of the financing sources we’re now using. We have applied for all the available financing options for our projects,” he added. Right now the agency is developing one project with the help of the World Bank and several others with European funds.

External financing sources for the institution’s investment projects are more than welcome in the context of the government’s general austerity measures. In the past two years the ANCPI has received all its funds from the state budget after having previously self-financed its activities for four years.

Spiroiu says the institution is a profitable one thanks to the various services it offers to individuals and companies. “In 2010 and 2011, since when we have been financed from the state budget, we have managed to generate enough money to cover our costs, except major investments, and an additional 70 percent,” she added.

Also, following the government’s austerity measures, about 850 jobs were cut at the agency. After the institution became state-funded other staff members left of their own volition to work in the private sector for considerably higher salaries, say agency representatives. “It is very hard to manage an efficient IT system with the present level of public wages,” explained Grigorescu.

About 3,000 people work for the agency in its general headquarters in Bucharest and its 42 county offices, which barely covers its personnel requirements, says Spiroiu. As it will not be possible to hire any new people in 2012, the agency will have to outsource some of its activities.

ANCPI representatives estimate that the institution receives about 10,000 files each day with various requests from individuals and companies. In addition to this, another 1,000 requests for information are made each month by other public institutions such as the National Integrity Agency (ANI) and the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).

And what about the general cadastre?

As for the much needed and much debated general cadastre, ANCPI representatives say that the process is much more complicated than meets the eye with the actual field measurements being the least of the problems and the only clear aspect in the entire process.

Getting the huge funds to finance the project is also only the tip of the iceberg, and even if Romania had the necessary money, the process would still take a very long time to complete so long as there isn’t a strong political will to implement it and, most importantly, to solve once and for all the legal issues related to property restitutions and property deeds which have been dealt with in a very incoherent manner over the past 20 years.

This October MDRT representatives announced at the end of a visit to South Korea that the ministry could sign a public-private partnership with Samsung for the general cadastre.

simona.bazavan@business-review.ro

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