The Zambia Land Alliance – ZLA, a non governmental organisation has called for the further review of the draft national land policy which does not appear to have a clear goals or clear overall objectives and what they feed into.
ZLA Executive Director Patrick Musole told the Zambian Business Times – ZBT in an exclusive interview that it is not clear from most objectives which entities are expected to play which role in the objectives realization hence, the situation analysis chapter should to be streamlined and be combined with some sections for a clear identification of issues which form the basis of the policy.
Musole also highlighted the need to enhance customary land tenure security stating that it does not have tenure security as there is no documentation linked to it hence, some registration form of customary land right should be considered.
He added that customary land owners should be provided with documentation recognized by government, traditional leaders and other stakeholder such as financial institutions to enhance land tenure security in the country.
“We are also aware of other organisations that are offering land certificates in certain chiefdoms on a pilot basis but these documents are currently not recognized by government, they are not legal documents and so, they are not official, therefore government through the ministry of lands should enhance customary land tenure security,” he said.
He has disclosed that the Alliance has made submissions on what should be reviewed in the draft national land policy and it is glad to report that the current draft has provisions for the certificate excerpt it does not clearly state who is to be responsible for issuing customary land certificate.
The ZLA Executive Director further called on government to maintain the dual land tenure system but added that the current system needs to be enhanced so that it provides a conversion of customary land to state and also to reverse the process to enable land owners convert back to their original status if the intended purpose is not archived.
Some development analysts have blamed the higher levels of rural poverty and under development in rural parts of Zambia to the lack of a secure land tenure system needed in a modern economy to support long term investments. Most rural folks depend on the generosity of their chiefs for their current assigned prices of land which some few unscrupulous traditional leaders have auctioned to city and foreign investors leaving the rightful owners in the cold.
The current system needs to be timely negotiated to balance the powers of the traditional leaders and the rights of their subjects to have a legal or documented claim on their assigned land if this injustice is to be stopped. It’s recognized that the traditional land system works well when the chief or leader is genuine but as leaders change, there has been cases were some few uncaring leaders have displaced and sold off arable land in the name of attracting investments but a great costs to the original long standing rural inhabitants.
