Dodoma — The Government has formalised 281,028 houses constructed in unplanned areas, the National Assembly was told yesterday.

Lands, Housing and Settlements Development minister John Chiligati said the houses were formalised between 2005 and last month in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Moshi, Dodoma and Tanga.

He said 264,360 houses were formalised in Dar es Salaam, 6,053 in Mwanza, 3,945 in Tanga, 1,019 in Moshi and 5,651 in Dodoma. He said 86,953 title deeds were issued to home owners.

"The titled deeds carry legal weight as other granted rights of occupancy and are registered and kept in district and village registries," he said.

CRDB Bank, NMB Bank, Dar es Salaam Community Bank, Azania Bank Limited, Barclays Bank and Pride were acknowledging the title deeds, he explained.

Mr Chiligati was tabling his ministry's budget estimates for 2009/10 in the national assembly yesterday that title deeds would facilitate in transferring ownership of the houses and serve as collateral for the owners to secure loans from various microfinance institutions.

Mr Chiligati said the Government had also surveyed land for 4,390 villages between 2005 and last month, bringing to 9,500 the number of villages surveyed.

The ministry also devised land use plans for 582 villages in 30 districts.

The long and short-tem strategies of the ministry in improving the process of issuing title deeds included establishment of five zonal lands offices in Dar es Salaam, Mbeya and Mwanza cities and in Moshi and Dodoma municipalities, he said.

The process of issuing land ownership documents would begin and end at the zonal offices, letter of offer issued before the title deeds would be omitted in the process, which would also be automated.

He requested the lawmakers to approve Sh33.5 billion for recurrent and development expenditure for this fiscal year.

The ministry was currently sensitising residents of the cities and the municipalities to cooperate with relevant authorities in acknowledging this kind of ownership so that more title deeds could be issued for beneficiaries to secure loans for their development activities, he said.