Windhoek
A special Cabinet committee set up to find solutions to the prevailing land problems in the country has recommended that government should regulate the property rental market.
In its report the special committee called for “a provision in the Consumer Protection Bill to regulate the property rental market, with a view to preventing the current exploitation of tenants by landlords.” The committee also called for the amendment of the Estate Agents Board Act to regulate the conduct of estate agents and property developers.
The committee further recommends that the Local Authorities Act of 1992 be amended to introduce and strictly enforce measures to regulate the sale of urban land to private developers.
The details are contained in a document tabled in the National Assembly yesterday, entitled ‘Implementation of the Cabinet Decisions on the Recommendations of the Special Cabinet Committee on Land and Related Matters’.
The special committee wants all outdated urban and regional planning laws repealed and replaced by a single urban planning law. It also called for the introduction of an institution solely tasked to regulate the property rental market. The Cabinet committee, led by Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, was established to come up with proposals, ranging from repealing outdated land-related laws, innovative approaches to funding and accelerating the provision of serviced land.
The committee recommended that the proposed amendments to the Local Authorities Act and the Regional Councils Act of 1992 prohibit the sale of urban land by auction and also prohibit ownership of urban land by foreign nationals. Foreign nationals would only be allowed to lease such land. The committee also suggested that the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002 be amended to provide for the establishment of land administration committees in areas where there are no recognised traditional authorities.
The country has a housing backlog of at least 100 000 houses and the backlog is growing at the rate of 6 000 per year. In recent months thousands of Namibians voiced their concern over the fact that very few households can afford their own houses or even land on which to build their homes.
The recommendations of the special committee come just weeks before the Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement’s planned land occupation scheduled for July 31.
Following a legal forum held by the AR group in Windhoek over the past weekend the group called for the establishment of a rent-and-housing control board to regulate rapidly escalating rental prices throughout the country.