The Sugar Company of Jamaica Holdings Limited (SCJ Holdings) yesterday handed over certificates of possession to 100 residents of Clifton, in St Catherine.

The handover formed a part of its ongoing community-regularisation programme aimed at giving land ownership to 2,000 families in 80 communities in sugar areas islandwide.

An additional 300 residents will receive their certificates by the end of 2015, paving the way to making them legitimate landowners.

The Clifton handover marked the second such by the SCJH, first having taken place in Hertford, Westmoreland, in February, at which time some 100 residents of that community also received certificates of possession for the land on which they have resided, informally, for decades.

Delivering the main address at the handover, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, in congratulating the recipients of certificates, said the provision of land and housing solutions to thousands of Jamaicans across the island was part of her government's commitment to create an "ownership society".

Minister of Agriculture. Labour and Social Security Derrick Kellier who has portfolio responsibility for the Sugar Company Holdings Limited, expressed his satisfaction with the work being done to transform sugar-area communities, which will ultimately improve the social well-being and security of residents.

Minister Kellier said the projects of the Sugar Holdings Company and Sugar Transformation Unit of the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry, range from environmental support, through tree-planting programmes such as the Navel String Project, through which one million trees will be planted over the next four years, in order to improve the watershed, support national climate change initiatives and provide tree crops.

The projects, Minister Kellier said, also included provision of land and houses as well as training opportunities.

With grant funding from the European Union, Government, through the Sugar Transformation Unit, has already spent more than $6 billion in improvement projects islandwide. The overall budget is $10 billion.