Top posts at Lands and Survey filled internally

(CNS): The Ministry for District Administration and Lands (MDAL) has appointed Uche Obi as the new director of the Department of Lands and Survey and Michael Whiteman as deputy director. The two Caymanians were recruited from within the department as both had held long-standing senior roles. Having been identified as potential successors to the outgoing director, they both completed a recruitment exercise acting as deputy director for four months. The successful candidate was made director and the runner-up was given the post of deputy.

“The advancement of these two highly capable, long-standing civil servants to senior positions is a vision realised,” said Acting Deputy Governor Gloria McField-Nixon. “This vision sees our best talent with a proven history of service delivery and the relevant education, experience and competencies, being inwardly promoted to senior leadership. Globally, employers are struggling to hire and retain talent in specialist roles, and in the Cayman Islands we are now having one set of Caymanian leaders training and developing the next.”

The director of Lands and Survey has responsibility for five units, chairing the Public Lands Commission and ensuring that stamp duty revenues are assessed and collected under the Stamp Duty Law (1995 Revision). The deputy director reports directly to the director, and deputises for and assists the director.

MDAL Acting Chief Officer Wilbur Welcome said that Obi and Whiteman were civil servant stalwarts, revered technocrats in their respective fields and thought leaders.

Obi has a postgraduate diploma in Business Systems Analysis and Design and a Master’s in Property Valuation and Law. He has served for 17 years in Lands and Survey as a valuer, senior valuer, and chief valuation officer before acting as deputy director. He has over 20 years real estate experience in the public and private sectors gained in the United Kingdom and the Caribbean region.

Obi said he was proud of the department’s team, which had collected CI$122 million in stamp duty and registration fees in 2021. He said the department would continue to prioritise and identify ways to innovate and evolve operations for a sustainable future.

Whiteman holds several technical certifications, including certification by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and specialises in surveying. Prior to his official appointment, he served as a survey technician, senior survey technician, geomatician, senior geomatician, and chief surveyor. His achievements include bringing the surveying of lands and properties into the digital age when he led the rewriting and updating of the 1972 Land Surveying Act and Regulations (1996 Revision). Whiteman has 30 years of experience in civil service work and management.

Whiteman said he was looking forward to continuing to modernise and embrace new methodologies at the department. “Our work has a great impact on the Cayman Islands as we promote and support land ownership and land use. Maintaining a secure land registry and creating well-defined boundaries will allow the public to have confidence in undertaking land use activities,” he added.