The 20th of October, 2022 marked the deadline for submitting applications for the new land registration by members of the public. This is a transition from the old system where land tittles held under tribal territories were only issued with customary certificate as evidence of ownership.
The day before the deadline, the Ministry of Lands published an indefinite extension of the process. Why there is no cap to this extension is still mystery as government continues to play her cards very close to her chest. The sensible thing would have been telling the public where the extension would end. This means that the ministry can one day announce that they will be closing the doors in a week’s time. It actually gives them that leverage.
I see the good and the bad in this new land policy and I will elect to start with the good out of this exercise. At independence or more precisely when land boards were made into our laws in 1972, Seretse Khama who was president made sure that indigenous people were disadvantaged in as far as land ownership was concerned.
They started off with three different types of land tenures in one country named Botswana. Tribal land was largely occupied by tribal people or I may say indigenous people. Then there was state land which included parcels of land such as national parks and urban centres. Then the rest remained as freehold and this was almost all occupied by white people and a handful of Africans which included the president himself and this was not by chance or coincidence, it was absolutely by design.
Africans could not use their land as collateral when needing loans in the banking sector as the land was deemed valueless. This unequal yoking of indigenous people and people of European descent made the later extremely wealthy while land ownership in the tribal areas drove Africans further into poverty. So in short poverty was manufactured for decades by the mere fact that tribal lands could not be used for commercial and profitable gain due to lack of financing.
Bareng Christopher Malatsi while serving as officer in-charge to the LAPCAS Project was convinced that the new land administration system would usher in a new dispensation of land equality in Botswana. This is a man I considered as a land freedom fighter. Malatsi believed that all land should be regarded as state land because in any case it all belongs to government. I see the fulfilment of Malatsi’s dream in the new land set up but this will be somewhat inverted.
The old land tenure system was a funny animal because a hactor of land in Gaborone north would value as much as P500 000 while the same size of land in Kgatleng District would be valued for as little as P25 000. That’s a fraction of the cost even though the two parcels of land are only separated by a thin piece of wire. The only difference was about the land tenure it was held under.
The new land act if applied diligently will bring down the price in the urban areas and especially in Gaborone. This will be caused by the rise of prices in the rural peripheries such as Mogoditshane, Oodi and Tlokweng. Mogoditshane particularly has remained to be the master bedroom for Gaborone workers but with limited financial benefit. We are going to see this place declared a township soon and all this will be to the benefit of land owners in the tribal area.
But there is something sinister that government is doing with this change of policy coming. Why are people required to spend so much of their hard earned resources into registration of their parcels of lands? This exercise has been achieved in the LAPCAS exercise which was done some ten years ago. Government has all the information they need to transition from the ordinary customary certificate to the new tittle deed. And why is there a requirement to register again when they have more than enough information?
There are so many unanswered questions and in most cases we can only be left to speculate as to why government has taken this route. The LAPCAS project had asked for the same information and GPS coordinates were provided. Malatsi always explained the project that he headed as a means by government to know “who owns what and where.” With the information extracted from us as the public ten years ago, there is absolutely no need for us to be taken through this again.
There is certainly a lot that government is not prepared to share with us as members of the public. But I see this exercise pointing to something similar to the Agricultural Revolution of Britain in the 1700s which looked very good on paper as it was intended to help with policies to increase food production for an expanding urban population.
Even in Britain, the changes were effected by an act of parliament known as the Enclosure Act which allowed communal grounds to be fenced up and placed in private hands. It was only the rich that could afford fences and in short it was an act that only served to empower the rich.
By the end of this exercise, the whole thing will resemble the British Agricultural Revolution which happened almost 400 years ago. One cannot tell if the new act has any safeguards for the poor and the illiterate who may not fully comprehend the consequences of failure to comply.
Government should have slowly effected the changes by announcing the expiry date of all tribal customary certificates. Each individual would be required to acquire a tittle deed at a point where they needed to transact on the land. The process would become smooth in the sense that individuals would be forced to effect the changes before they could transact with their parcel of land. For instance, one would not be allowed to connect utilities using an expired certificate and this would be where the catch would be for all.
*Richard Moleofe was the Chairman of Mogoditshane Subordinate Land Board in 2011
