Iuze Mukube
Social justice activist Shaun Gariseb has called on the government to carry out a comprehensive land audit, arguing that corruption and land injustice have impeded equitable land distribution.
The activist, who has embarked on a cross-country fact-finding mission, stated that the Ancestral Land Foundation (Alfon) and the /Khomanin Landless People’s Association will seek a court order to compel the government into a “land audit” from independence till now.
Gariseb stated that a detailed audit is necessary to expose how the /Khomanin are subjected to land injustice and the land corruption by white farmers and black Namibians.
Crucially, the activist pointed out that white commercial farmers are allegedly not reporting on unoccupied farms but share the farms when the owner dies.
He stated this has happened in the Danie Botha and Estherhuizen area and at a lot of farms in the Nossob area.
“This is organised crime; they do this because they don’t want /Khomanin people resettled on their indigenous land or the farms redistributed in accordance with Article 16(2) of the Namibian Constitution, land reform objectives and policies,” he said.
“There is just a lot of unoccupied land; these people must just be told to coexist. That’s what they don’t want; even in urban areas, they don’t live with blacks. It’s 2026, for heaven’s sake. We must learn to coexist,” he added.
He commended the government for exploring new initiatives, such as the proposed Land Bill, which aims to promote local land ownership and regulate foreign ownership.
Gariseb also stated that a detailed audit would establish who owns land, as many farms like Friedrichsruh (no. 13), a farm located 80 km southeast of Windhoek, are open and unoccupied, pointing out that the old man who used to take care of the farm died last year.
“We have all the information on what’s going on in our country, especially our Khomas region. The resettlement programme has never favoured / Khomanin,” he said, adding that other Namibian ethnic groups are favoured to the /Khomanin’s detriment.
“It is a shame when you see the resettlement list since independence; in our regions where our tribes are at least supposed to dominate, it is the northerners, who already have land, that are resettled on the farms,” he added.
“The land injustice is tangible; the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform has a deliberate agenda against /Khomanin people. There’s no need to bother selfish white farmers for the land they (stole) and have, as long as they don’t destroy gravesites.” he said.
He further urged the government to buy back land from absentee landowners and from those deceased owners who leave the land unoccupied. On the government’s side, the Land Bill tabled in parliament by land reform minister Inge Zaamwani proposes a raft of changes, among them scrapping the controversial “willing buyer, willing seller” clause, which many blame for Namibia’s snail-paced land reform agenda.
Zaamwani has called the Bill a “transformative instrument” that aims to correct historical land dispossession and promote fair access to land.
Once passed into law, the bill is expected to bring major changes to land ownership and redistribution.
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Photo: Heather Erdmann