Botswana is three years to the golden jubilee and Vision 2016; a coincidence designed to intersect at fifty years of uninterrupted rule; epitomizing perfection, serenity, ambience and interlude of sorts, after which the journey would have just begun.
As things fall apart in various sectors of the economy, land is not to be outcompeted. At the heart of the land problems are land holding systems commonly known as land tenures, with respect to rights they confer on their holders. Lack of a robust land policy, management and administration systems, processes and procedures’, squatting by the poor and land grabbing by the rich was inevitable. Land, entrepreneurship, capital and labour are prerequisite to prosperity.
Land is not only a source of wealth but also a home to shelter which most can only yearn for.
Land has ostensibly become topical, with huge chunks of valuable land concentrated in the few moneyed to the utter consternation of the have-not. These daunting challenges manifest in discontent which threatens to destabilise the country’s legendary stability and peace, and has prompted a group of youth to coalesce and pressure government to tackle land issues as a matter of urgency, attracting prominence and creating an aura of hope to the multitudes (including from the ruling party) who are concerned with land issues. It remains to be seen how effective this apolitical strategy to otherwise hardcore political issues be in getting audience of the political leadership.
This strategy though appearing noble at face value is flawed as it has the potential to let the culprits off the nook by creating an opportunity to be pacified with promises and lies in return for another five-year term.
How does one explain the rulers claiming to be equally concerned about issues they are supposed to solve without admitting they have no solutions to land problems besieging the nation?
Before independence in 1966, chiefs were the custodians of land; managed and administered it on behalf of its tribes, after attaining self rule, land boards under the stewardship of politicians were bestowed with that responsibility with the resultant land tenures discussed in detail bellow;
Tribal land; managed and administered by land boards which are constituted mainly by none land administration experts elected at a kgotla (often with political support or sponsorship) together with chiefs and land overseers (ordinary villagers residing in respective localities who play a pivotal role in who gets tribal land).
After allocation, one is issued with a certificate of land rights and may apply for a lease and after cadastral survey, acquire a title deed. This land currently constitute about 70 percent and the bulk of it is without title deeds, hence held in a worthless certificate which may be revoked at the instigation of the land board if undeveloped, needed for the public good such as village, town or city expansion or other seemingly compelling reasons. This land right cannot secure a loan debenture and its holder is vulnerable to the vagaries of the market forces and or the whims of land board, minister or both. The value and alienability of this land is negatively affected by the weakness inherent in its title.
State land: constitutes over 20 percent, the state leases it to individuals or company under fixed period state grant who may sublet it and can secure loan debentures, it is managed and administered by Department of lands by professionals and
Freehold: constitutes less than 5 percent and continues to decline as government buy it from private owners at exorbitant prices to increase state land. It is the most valuable and superior land right held in perpetuity and almost unencumbered (without legal burdens) other than for mineral rights and subject to the overriding public interest i.e. roads, power lines etc.
Freeholds are naturally owned by minority white settlers, churches or Tati Concession Company as farms and comprise the most fertile and productive, hence prime land. It is self-regulating, safe for registration at Deeds Registry as and when transacted upon.
The most significant change in land tenure since independence is the decrease in freeholds and an increase in state land due to purchase by government to accommodate expansion of villages, towns and cities which are rapidly growing resulting in competing uses and posing serious socio political challenges. The majority of people live in the least fertile and unproductive land while the former colonial and their surrogates (neo colonial) masters parcelled for themselves fertile and prime land in the form of freeholds in areas such as Ghanzi, Kgalagadi, Tuli-block, Tati, Gaborone etc before independence. Rural to urban migration compounded with search for job opportunities further caused strain on land servicing and allocation.
This invariably prompted land grabbing in villages within the precincts of towns and cities which culminated in the Kgabo Land Commission and ultimately in the quagmire the nation has to now grapple with.
The overriding republicanism superimposed liberalisation of land ownership; whereas initially tribes were given preference, tribal land act was amended by replacing tribe with citizen, thus entitling the later to be illegible for land anywhere in the country while on the other hand tribal territories denotes authority of such tribes particularly on land.
This was compounded by lack of clear land policy leading to insurmountable challenges as tribes in the suburban land, some of whom own land in the urban areas as well as their villages, seek preference over none tribesmen.
Most villages started as settlements of one kind or other and over periods of time their status changed after meeting set criteria, in essence, they could be said to have been squatters at some point or other and later recognised as fully fledged entities.
They evolved into villages overtime with initial negligible modern infrastructure, unplanned spatial sprouting homesteads and with the indigenous populations least protected by the subsisting land systems (tribal land) under which most fall. It is common to own several types of land with varying uses simultaneously; i.e. (ploughing), home (village) cattle post, commercial (general dealers) while the elite on the other hand hold mainly residential, commercial (including farms) and industrial properties or land in towns and cities. Due to declining rural life styles owing to inadequate water for farming and as result of urbanisation in general, there is a greater demand for serviced and or alienable land, which has been by and large the preserve of the few elites. It is this shift in paradigm that created the landless and squatters.
Each time the yellow monster rears its ugly head into the property of the powerless, it evokes pain and suffering of the downtrodden, while the elite who illegally occupy land, i.e. Molapo Crossing are not subjected to the forceful eviction or dehumanising treatment but instead their occupation is regularized. Limitation Act is long overdue to address squatting, the law must prescribe a period within which adverse possession (squatting) of land converts to legal ownership, say 10 years. It makes nonsense to say people who have occupied land for well over 50 years, long enough for a golden jubilee are squatters just because they entrusted their lives to some political buffoon who could not enact laws that could protect what should be rightly theirs.
Depoliticising issues, let alone land is no panacea, it can only serve to sugar-coat the otherwise political issues and could as well be a time bomb. Voters should throw issues at politicians and demand answers. Pressure groups should be political to achieve political ends. Anything that will prolong political power will always be welcomed by those who are already in power.
As 2014 draws near, political party manifestos should clearly state their positions on the troublesome land questions, the voters must do all within their political power to exert pressure on the parties to commit to deliverable programs that will address the land issues that are of immediate concern to them.
Independence signalled embracing republicanism over tribalism, however tribal territories act and land boards still emphasize tribal supremacy. Ngwato, Rolong, Malete, Tawana, Ngwaketse, Kweneng, Kgatleng and Tlokweng and their respective district councils embolden tribalism and lack of political commitment from the ruling elite to let go of tribal supremacy.
The Districts remain administratively cumbersome, with some makeshift sub district council concept to conceal the desire not to tamper with superior tribes’ territories. The subsisting Land tenures depict reluctance on the ruling party to shed tribal inclination (which permeates a wider spectrum of our lives) and instead truly embrace republican ideals thus making Batswana a nation trapped between tribalism and nationhood.
It is this indecision which owes its existence to codified laws and policies such chieftainship, Township and District Councils Acts to mention but a few that continue to haunt Botswana and threaten its nationhood with occasional tensions manifesting in land and or acidic tribal undertones.
