Minister wants to fast-track land reform

LANDS Minister Alpheus !Naruseb has expressed disappointment at the slow pace of land reform and urged the Land Reform Advisory Commission to find ways to accelerate resettlement.

This could include changing the law to prioritise the resettlement of the most needy. “The rate at which land is being acquired is very slow.You need to think of innovative approaches that can deliver land,” !Naruseb told a group of land reform commissioners and Ministry staff yesterday.He said land was “desperately needed” and the commission must try all possible approaches to get it.”Some of the people indicated to me that they had been applying for over 10 years and currently consider the prospects of getting land through the resettlement programme very dim,” the Minister said.Last year the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) said Namibia’s land reform programme was a “zero-sum game” that merely swaps one form of poverty for another in its current resettlement programme.The Namibian Government, like those of neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe, has made land reform a central policy tenet, and “Government’s resettlement scheme has placed 800 farms in black hands in the 17 years since independence”, the LAC report said.”This is about 12 per cent of all farms, or less than one per cent a year, so the process will take over 100 years to complete.”!Naruseb said the resettlement process must become “clear and transparent”, to an extent that the officials must be able to tell unsuccessful applicants the reason behind a decision.He claimed some commissioners and staff leaked information about deliberations on farm allocations to people even before it was communicated to him.”I have been approached by individuals with complaints, in some cases with detailed information and documentary evidence on issues deliberated in the commission, even before the commission’s recommendations have reached my office,” he said.He urged them to do their work in confidence with him and to treat it as such.”We must strive to select the most deserving candidates, those who have the knowledge and capacity to excel as farmers,” he said.However, the Minister also spoke about the lack of a strategy for “special cases” such as former farmworkers living in road corridors and resettled beneficiaries on group farms who want to expand their farming operations.He called for short- and medium-term measures to address the resettlement problems.”You could, in collaboration with regional councils, develop prioritised lists of groups that require urgent resettlement and reserve a quota that of allotments to these special groups.If legislation changes are required, we should do it,” !Naruseb.He said the land acquisition and development fund had sufficient money to rehabilitate the infrastructure on farms the Government bought, but that was not being done.In its report, LAC identified the size of the farms allocated and the agricultural methods practised among the problems.The commissioners were expected to listen to papers on key issues such as the criteria used for resettlement, examples of expropriation, the number of farms referred to the Lands Tribunal and the road ahead, post-settlement support, profiles of resettled people as well as the valuation approach and rentals.The public will, however, not have access to the discussions since the media were barred from attending.Namibia inherited a colonial division of land in which about half the agricultural land is owned by 3 500 white farmers.Farms average about 5 000 hectares in the north of the country and 10 000 hectares in the south, while nearly one million black Namibians live on “heavily overgrazed” communal lands.According to the Namibia Agricultural Union “more than 1 000 farms”, or about 16 per cent of commercial farmland, have been transferred to previously disadvantaged people over the past 18 years.Their counterparts at the Namibia National Farmers’ Union said the Government’s willing-seller, willing-buyer policy had failed to address the land imbalance because white commercial farmers were unwilling to sell.They have warned that the slow pace of land reform could produce another Zimbabwe, where hundreds of white-owned farms have been seized by self-styled liberation war veterans with the support of President Robert Mugabe’s government.Since 1995, N$20 million had been provided for in the National Budget to purchase land, and this amount has since been increased to N$50 million a year.However, Government said the willing-seller-willing-buyer approach was cumbersome and introduced land expropriation.According to the Government, more than 200 000 landless Namibians are currently awaiting resettlement.”The rate at which land is being acquired is very slow.You need to think of innovative approaches that can deliver land,” !Naruseb told a group of land reform commissioners and Ministry staff yesterday.He said land was “desperately needed” and the commission must try all possible approaches to get it.”Some of the people indicated to me that they had been applying for over 10 years and currently consider the prospects of getting land through the resettlement programme very dim,” the Minister said.Last year the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) said Namibia’s land reform programme was a “zero-sum game” that merely swaps one form of poverty for another in its current resettlement programme.The Namibian Government, like those of neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe, has made land reform a central policy tenet, and “Government’s resettlement scheme has placed 800 farms in black hands in the 17 years since independence”, the LAC report said.”This is about 12 per cent of all farms, or less than one per cent a year, so the process will take over 100 years to complete.” !Naruseb said the resettlement process must become “clear and transparent”, to an extent that the officials must be able to tell unsuccessful applicants the reason behind a decision.He claimed some commissioners and staff leaked information about deliberations on farm allocations to people even before it was communicated to him.”I have been approached by individuals with complaints, in some cases with detailed information and documentary evidence on issues deliberated in the commission, even before the commission’s recommendations have reached my office,” he said.He urged them to do their work in confidence with him and to treat it as such.”We must strive to select the most deserving candidates, those who have the knowledge and capacity to excel as farmers,” he said.However, the Minister also spoke about the lack of a strategy for “special cases” such as former farmworkers living in road corridors and resettled beneficiaries on group farms who want to expand their farming operations.He called for short- and medium-term measures to address the resettlement problems.”You could, in collaboration with regional councils, develop prioritised lists of groups that require urgent resettlement and reserve a quota that of allotments to these special groups.If legislation changes are required, we should do it,” !Naruseb.He said the land acquisition and development fund had sufficient money to rehabilitate the infrastructure on farms the Government bought, but that was not being done.In its report, LAC identified the size of the farms allocated and the agricultural methods practised among the problems.The commissioners were expected to listen to papers on key issues such as the criteria used for resettlement, examples of expropriation, the number of farms referred to the Lands Tribunal and the road ahead, post-settlement support, profiles of resettled people as well as the valuation approach and rentals.The public will, however, not have access to the discussions since the media were barred from attending.Namibia inherited a colonial division of land in which about half the agricultural land is owned by 3 500 white farmers.Farms average about 5 000 hectares in the north of the country and 10 000 hectares in the south, while nearly one million black Namibians live on “heavily overgrazed” communal lands.According to the Namibia Agricultural Union “more than 1 000
farms”, or about 16 per cent of commercial farmland, have been transferred to previously disadvantaged people over the past 18 years.Their counterparts at the Namibia National Farmers’ Union said the Government’s willing-seller, willing-buyer policy had failed to address the land imbalance because white commercial farmers were unwilling to sell.They have warned that the slow pace of land reform could produce another Zimbabwe, where hundreds of white-owned farms have been seized by self-styled liberation war veterans with the support of President Robert Mugabe’s government.Since 1995, N$20 million had been provided for in the National Budget to purchase land, and this amount has since been increased to N$50 million a year.However, Government said the willing-seller-willing-buyer approach was cumbersome and introduced land expropriation.According to the Government, more than 200 000 landless Namibians are currently awaiting resettlement.