Audit of USAID/El Salvador"s agrarian reform sector support program, project no. 519-0265

Audit covers the period through 6/86 and is based on document review, interviews with Mission and GOES personnel, and visits to cooperatives and GOES reform offices. Overall progress in transferring and titling land to reform beneficiaries and in deploying services to these beneficiaries has been slow, although the program is working much better than at the time of the last review in 1983. Due to cumbersome titling procedures and lack of funds to compensate former owners, the GOES has registered only 8 of a planned 317 Phase I land titles and 7,325 of a planned 10,000 Phase 3 titles. The titling process should, however, benefit from several recent reforms: legislation of May and September 1986 which simplified the property registration system and overcame many previous hurdles to registering properties encumbered by liens; and GOES actions to streamline titling procedures. The GOES has not placed enough trained managers and accountants at the agrarian reform cooperatives. Also, the GOES has not properly accounted for the use of project-funded vehicles by the implementing agency, the National Finance Office for Phase III Agrarian Reform Lands, instituted proper vehicle maintenance or repair controls, or fully utilized an AID-funded computer system. Five recommendations are provided for USAID/ES to ensure that the GOES address these shortcomings.