A long and detailed paper-trail details how Botswana’s first president Sir Seretse Khama benefited from the British Protectorate’s land grab to become one of Botswana’s biggest land barons.
Sunday standard investigations have revealed that while most countries at independence instituted land reforms to transfer ownership rights from wealthy colonial landlords back to citizen poor, small-scale farmers working the land under various kinds of tenancy arrangements, Botswana’s founding president embarked on a massive land grab, amassing huge tracts of land between Gaborone and Francistown.
A search from the Registry of Deeds revealed that between 1969 and 1980 Khama acquired at least 10 farms between Tlokweng and Francistown, formerly owned by the British South Africa Company.
Determined to insure that the land does not revert back to Batswana, Khama presided over the formulation of a Constitution in which one of the longest sections is Section 8, which protects private property from expropriation. The section states that the land which was stolen from Batswana shall not be subject to “compulsorily possession.”
The most controversial is Kenmoir (Pty) Ltd popularly known as Ruretse which originally belonged to Batlokwa from 1883 until Botswana was declared a protectorate in 1885.
Not long thereafter, the British Protectorate pressured dikgosi to grant land for the building of the railway by the British South Africa Company. Among the pieces of land, they annexed was part of Tlokweng.
Apart from the Crown Reserve, which the British kept, the British South Africa Company divided the rest into freehold farms and sold them to white settlers.
According to records from the Deeds Registry, Ruretse or Kenmoir (formerly HyZERS Chance No.1-KP) was bought by Hendrick Wilhelmus Huijser and Martinus Phillippus Heijser in 1918.
Suddenly, Botswana’s land system changed. In the old system, an entire community owned land, managed by the elders. With the advent of private property, history meant nothing next to paperwork: Title to land trumped tradition. And as was often the case under colonialism, The Heijser’s walked away with legal deeds for the land and Batlokwa who had lived and worked on those lands for generations were left with nothing.
At independence the farm did not revert back to Batlokwa. Four years after independence, sometime in 1970, the title to the land was transferred to Anna Christina Malan and Felix Festus Malan. About three months later on 4th June 1970, the Malan’s sold and signed away the title of the land to Seretse Khama.
On 18th December, 1970 the 2569.0303 Hectares farm was registered under Sir Seretse Khama’s title.
On 13th July 1977 Sir Seretse Khama registered Kenmoir PTY (Ltd) and two months later on 28th September 1977, he donated the farm to the company. The company’s sole director and shareholder is former president Lt Gen Ian Khama.
The controversy over the ownership of Ruretse still reverberate up to this day and the situation continues to get dire as the tribe runs out of land.
Around that time, Seretse Khama was on a land grabbing roll. He acquired another controversial piece of land which formerly belonged to Balete. According to records from the Deeds Registry, the 2751.4624 (Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-one acres of land was parcelled out to Patrick Lonergan on 13th November 1940 by the British south Africa Company. A few months before independence, on 7th January 1966 the title of the land was transferred to Petrus Frederik Brink. At independence, the piece of land part of which now is Mookodi Game Reserve did not revert back to Balete.
Instead, hardly three years after independence, on 24th March 1969, Spencer Minchin then a legal conveyancer with Minchin and Kelly registered to change the title of the land from Brink to Seretse Khama. On 6th November 1969, the title to the farm was registered under Khama.
Two years later on 26th June 1970 the same Spencer Percival Minchin transferred the same lot Portion 2 of the Farm TRAQUAIR No.10-KO measuring 2731.4624 back to Petrus Frederik Brink.
Two years later on 7th march 1972 Brink sold a portion of the same plot measuring 1113.4735 as per the same Deed of Transfer no 698 to Ian Stuart Kirby. This is what is currently Mmokolodi Game Reserve.
In 1991, then commander of the Botswana Defence Force, former president Lt Gen Ian Khama became the first chair and founding trustee of Mmokolodi nature reserve.
Sunday Standard investigations have revealed that between 1970 and 1980, sir Seretse Khama acquired about six farms in the Francistown area: deed number 1969-77/1970 deed number 262/1978 and 363/1978 deed number83/1974-191/1974, deed number603/1976-69/1977, deed number 1981/1972-46/1973 and deed number 257/1975-314/1975.
More than fifty years later, Sir Seretse Khama’s land grabbing legacy continues to impact on the economic development of the country. The shortage of land around Gaborone and Francistown, now inhibits the growth of the two biggest cities in the country.
In the south, the Capital is hemmed in by these private farms originally grabbed by the British South Africa Company under Cecil John Rhodes, re-sold to individual farmers, predominantly from South Africa, and have subsequently been sub divided and sold on numerous times. Many of them were acquired by early supporters of the Botswana Democratic Party – some of whom were members of the pre-Independence European Legislative Council and had seats at the table which drafted Botswana’s post -independence constitution.
After Independence, a number of these landowners, and businessmen, became members of Botswana’s first Parliament, and included George Sim, as a Specially Elected Member, who owned Broadhurst Farm and what subsequently became Phakalane.
Another member was Bernard Steinberg, elected as MP for Serowe who owned thousands of acres of land to the south of Gaborone, subsequently sub divided and sold as Mmokolodi, including the Mmokolodi Game Reserve, and other farms such as Senalte. James Haskins, who controlled land and businesses throughout the North East was a Minister in Sir Seretse Khama’s first Cabinet, as was David Morgan, a landowner in the Lobatse area. Although not an MP, another influential supporter of the BDP was Russel England a businessman from Lobatse.
The Tati Company’s control of land in Francistown has also become a lightning rod of controversy, including what has been described as a secret deal between the late Sir Seretse Khama, and the company, one of whose General Managers in Francistown, was a Khama.
