Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
Windhoek-The Ministry of Land Reform has spent N$188 million during the 2015/2016 financial year to acquire 22 farms measuring 141 million hectares for the resettlement of landless Namibians.
This is against the 98,000 hectares that would be acquired for resettlement in the 2017/2018 financial year.
Addressing staff yesterday, the Minister of Land Reform, Utoni Nujoma, said 78 families have been resettled on 22 farms acquired by the government last year.
He added that three farms measuring just over 10,000 hectares are pending final purchase by the ministry at a cost of just over N$17 million.
Furthermore, Nujoma announced that to date 167,034 communal land rights have been mapped and digitized, representing 83 percent of 196,000 communal land rights that are presently registered nationally.
According to Nujoma, a total of 103,336 customary land rights have been registered and 92,780 certificates were issued countrywide, representing 62 percent of the communal land rights currently digitized, while 90 percent of registered land rights owners received their certificates.
He said this contributes to security of tenure of Namibians living in communal areas, which represents the majority of the Namibian people.
On top of that, Nujoma said, it is the ministry’s quest to increase the registration of communal land rights, adding that efforts have been made to educate the community whereby 342 communal land rights registration awareness campaigns at village level were conducted.
This awareness, he said, resulted in 8,325 communal land rights applications being received by the ministry countrywide between April 2016 and December 2016.
Additionally, he said, during the same period 11,202 applications were displayed on village maps and 14,351 communal land rights were registered.
Nujoma said that in line with the ministry’s quest to provide secure tenure to all resettled farmers, a total of 36 resettlement lease agreements have been signed in the Hardap, //Karas, Omaheke, Erongo and Otjozondjupa regions.
Nujoma said that in order to ensure sustainability in the utilization of land resources, the ministry has developed an Integrated Regional Land Use Plan (IRLUP) in various regions.
He said for this financial year the ministry is planning to develop the IRLUPs for Omaheke, Omusati and Oshana regions.
“Progress in realizing this output stands at 92 percent and the Otjozondjupa IRLUP is at 80 percent,” he said.
Nujoma said challenges have been experienced and efforts are being put in place to ensure that Omusati and Oshana IRLUPs are finalized for implementation.
He said the ministry has also embarked upon the computerization of property registration. He said to this end 43,622 deeds documents have been digitized.
“The total of property rights registered since April 2016 stands at 20,273 deeds and 7,421 sectional titles, while revenue amounting to N$ 3.6 million was collected in the current financial year.”
Nujoma said the ministry also completed the first draft of the Boundaries Delimitation and Demarcation Commission Bill.
“Due diligence will be given to ensure that the enactment of the bill is obtained,” he said, adding that the ministry is also responsible for providing a modern and reliable infrastructure to facilitate economic development and competitiveness through the development of fundamental data sets in support of Namibia’s spatial data infrastructure.
He said for the current financial year, the ministry has managed to revise 50 percent of the Otjozondjupa regional vector data set.
Nujoma said this revision resulted in the delivery and quality control inspection of 80 map sheets with a scale of 50,000, two map sheets with a scale of 250,000 and one map sheet with a scale of 10,000 covering the towns and areas of Okakarara, Otjiwarongo, Okahandja and Tsumkwe.