Liberia Customer Service Center Opens
On September 17, 2012 the Center for National Document and Records Agency (CNDRA) opened its Customer Service Center in the Monrovia headquarters. The key address and formal ribbon cutting was performed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Augustine Kpehe Ngafua. The ceremony was well attended followed by a tour of the Customer Service Center and scanning facilities.
The USAID funded Liberia Land Policy and Institutional Support (LPIS) Project supported CNDRA in the physical reconstruction of the center as well as the provision of hardware and software to scan and register land deeds. LPIS trained CNDRA staff in the use of the computer software that will digitize all new land deeds registered in the Monrovia headquarters. The Customer Service Center will allow CNDRA staff to quickly scan land deeds and accompanying maps and return the original documents to the landowners. This will be the first time that both deed documents and parcel maps are being recorded which will ease all future title searches and aid in land dispute resolution. In the two months following the opening of the Customer Service Center, more than 500 deeds and other instruments were scanned and registered, compared with 806 deeds registered in all of 2011.
The Ministry of Finance will have an office inside CNDRA thus allowing people to pay the requisite fees in the same facility as opposed to having to travel downtown to obtain a ‘flag receipt’. Fees for all services are posted outside the main entrance. A second poster informs the public of the necessary documents required for registration and the steps to be followed Thus the public knows what is expected of them and what fees are expected to be paid thereby eliminating a constant source of nationwide complaint: that of having to pay ‘additional fees’ for government services.
The Customer Service Center is networked to the scanning lab thus allowing data to be logged in quickly. Added to this, the project procured customer tracking software which can be used to track each stage of a transaction thus allowing the center to monitor the time it takes to do each transaction and areas where improvements could be made. A fast internet connection has been installed which will be improved early next year when CNDRA is connected to the country’s fiber optic network.
This report presents a snapshot of the new Customer Service Center at Liberia’s Center for National Document and Records Agency (CNDRA). The Liberia Land Policy and Institutional Support (LPIS) project supported the reconstruction of the Customer Service Center and provided hardware and software to scan and register land deeds.