SPYL says it wants a resettlement revamp

THE Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) is calling for a revision of the country’s land redistribution policies.

‘We want a policy revamp,’ SPYL Secretary for Information and mobilisation Clinton Swartbooi said at a media conference in Windhoek yesterday.He said the SPYL has a problem with the fact that only three to four per cent of Namibians born after 1970 have been resettled. Swartbooi said the SPYL will hold a land convention next month to look at housing, resettlement and the commercialisation of communal farmland.Swartbooi took issue with the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ system, which he said is not yielding results. He added that even the Affirmative Action farmers will have to be scrutinised based on their production.Also at yesterday’s press conference, Swartbooi announced that the SPYL will hold ‘youth rallies’ in its effort to reach out to more young people. The first one is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in Rehoboth. Swartbooi also said that the SPYL is happy with the outcome of last weekend’s Swapo Electoral College. According to him, the results proved that the SPYL is a force to be reckoned with in Swapo, since the party agreed with their decision to endorse former SPYL secretary Paulus Kapia by voting him into the list of candidates for the National Assembly. He congratulated the President on putting three youth candidates on his list of 10 candidates. Swartbooi also took issue with complaints from people in the South that candidates from the southern regions are not well represented on the Swapo list.He said leaders are supposed to work hard for the party so that everyone knows of their contributions. If they don’t make it onto the list, they shouldn’t claim that some segments of the party are being sidelined.’Swapo has not sidelined the South,’ he said.