The Abuja Geographic Information Systems,AGIS,has said its decision to revert to payment of its charges by bank draft was as a result of some bureaucratic bottlenecks and cumbersome procedures that were involved in the former systems of payments by bank teller.

speaking in an exclusive interview with the Abuja Inquierer,General Manager,Agis,Dr. Ismail Iro dispelled insinuations in some quarters concerning the new strategy, saying that it is only for convenience that AGIS has chosen to revert to bank draft, nothing that with the present arrangement, they were not at the mercy of any bank to disclose to them how much has been collected on their behalf.

"We find this payment by bank teller, not really convenience for us. I want to take first account of the payment lodged with AGIS and later on, we can deliver to the banks. In this case, we know exactly how much we give to the bank and not them to tell us how much they colleted for us and sometimes people would make payment but would not submit the letters immediately and in some cases the tellers would get lost" Iro explained.

The GM further stated that with the new computerised banking system, the AGIS prefer a situation whereby it will be able to scan the images of instruments submitted to them and in this case not tellers issued by the banks but bank drafts or cheques as well as the person making such payments, which can later be used for reconciliation with what has been lodged in the bank.

According to him, the teller systems has a lot of flaws." Apart from been hand writing, tellers are carbonated and I believed that the bank tellers cannot withstand 99 years as, as land records are require to last.

Continuing, Iro maintained that " payees through the use of tellers were not able to state the purpose of which payment is were made weather they are for recertification," stressing that the new policy,AGIS stands the chance of knowing exactly what purpose of payment are meant for.

He added," we are capturing all information into a database. Not only do you have the person that the payment is credited even the person that lodge in the teller is captured into the system. With that information to us we will be able to reconcile much later with bank.Also,if payment is done by bank draft, we do not need to have designated banks so that others do not conclude that there is discrimination in the process of selection."

 On Revenue Generation,Iro disclosed that the agency has collected over # 15 billion from 2004 till date, noting verification and recertification exercise has uncovered and brought to an end cases of multiple applications.

In shocking revelation, only 30,000 out of over 105,000 persons who applied for land in Abuja since 1985 turned out to authenticate their claims on ownership of plots.

He remarked that land fees charged by them are relatively low, explaining the the amount of # 50,000 fixed as cost of application does not exclude choice areas considering the value of landed property of such places.

On level of trained manpower required by AGIS as sensitive establishment, the GM said manpower development was a critical aspect of the Agency, explaining that his administration takes capacity building seriously in order to have personnel knowledgeable in the highly computerized nature of its operations.