AN article in the New Era’s edition of September 11, 2013, headlined “Unrecognised chiefs at an obvious disadvantage”, does not only make for an interesting observation but reading. Because the article, and/or observation touches at the very nerve centre of traditional governance, if not the essence of the existentialism and the very existentialism of traditional authorities if not even the debacle and chaos within what one would define as fifth tier or six tier quasi-government-cum-traditional structures.
In a rare first, a government official is straight forward about the chaos that seems to be reigning on this front of governance structures, a situation attributable largely to unrecognised traditional leaders, and the impact thereof on government development programmes ‑ calling for an urgent and immediate attention to this vexed question.
“In the Kunene Region, there are a lot of unrecognised traditional leaders who are unable to allocate land to their subjects, because they are not authorised to do so by either the Traditional Authority Act, or the Communal Land Reform Act,” Louise Shixwameni, Head of Training on the Communal Land Support Project in the region, is quoted as having said in the article.
“This means that only recognised traditional leaders are allowed to give customary land rights or leasehold rights to people in their areas of jurisdiction, which deprives community members who live in villages of traditional leaders not recognised by government the opportunity to claim their land rights, or register their land,” Shixwameni is further quoted in this article. Before, coming to the essence, a passing caveat on Shixwameni’s observation may be in order, especially with regard to ‘areas of jurisdiction’ because I am not aware of anywhere in the Traditional Authorities Act where it speaks of ‘area of jurisdiction’ other than ‘a jurisdiction over people’, wherever such subjects may find themselves all over Namibia. In fact, Shxwameni is not the first to be confused and/or to lack clarity over the supposed ‘area of jurisdiction’ of traditional authorities as provided for in the said Act.
In fact, this is a confusion that has been reigning supreme among government officials, even among top-ranking political office bearers. The result has been chaos that has sometimes bordered on ungovernability, if not total wars among traditional communities. And this state of affairs has long been openly known, to both government officials and political office bearers alike, who have been seeming to conveniently turning a deaf ear to such wrangling, to the detriment ‑ if not retrogression or dysfunctionality ‑ of some traditional communities.
Such a scenario has also had its obvious impact on the current registration of communal customary land rights, the deadline thereof which, time and again had to be pushed forward to the current deadline of 2014. While this has been the case, still there seems to have been very little enthusiasm for registration among some traditional communities all over the country to register their communal land rights, simply because traditional leaders who have not been recognised have opted not to encourage their subjects to register.
This phenomenon of unrecognised traditional leaders seems to pervade through many government development programmes, with officials seeming to be injudicious in their discretions when dealing with various traditional communities, depending on whether their leaders or them are recognised or not. Hence, the “deprivation” of communities that Shixwamweni is quoted to be referring to. This columnist has empirical evidence in writing of a communication by one regional office of a Ministry arbitrarily deciding against the involvement of a section of a traditional community, just because councillors of this traditional authority have not been gazetted. Such wanton discretions are rampant among government officials all over the country, with political office bearers equally guilty if only by their sheer inaction and indiscretion about the matter, and silence on giving position and policy directions to their subordinates in this regard. Meantime, the chaos continues, and the governance rot within the traditional structures is worsening, and communities are being torn asunder.
It is not only the unrecognised chiefs whose plight needs looking into but the whole basis on which traditional communities have been recognised needs revisiting. Because time and again I have been against the principle of creating governments, albeit on a traditional community level, for just a selected or chosen assumed royalties in a Namibia where communities are increasingly becoming multi-ethnic and cultural. This is not to say that traditional communities do not have a right of existence. So be it for the advancement of their parochial cultural interests. But when they start to become quasi-government institutions, then their purvey is no more simply parochial interests but broader national institutions, and hence their existence and/or recognition cannot be simply based on their avowed royalty but on their national character entrusted with national duties as is the case with traditional authorities under the current dispensation, where they are entrusted with official national functions such as land allocation other than just administering to the cultural needs and wants of their respective traditional communities.
By Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro