By Wezi Tjaronda
WINDHOEK
The Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) has said the way expropriation of farmland is being carried out does not contribute to the success of the land reform programme.
Taking three expropriated farms, Ongombo West, Okurusu and Marburg, which were expropriated in 2005 and 2006 as examples, the legal body said there was no evidence to indicate that the farms that have been expropriated were taken under any comprehensive plan for the purpose of land reform.
While expropriation is an appropriate and necessary legal part of land reform, the LAC said changes should be made to the Agricultural Commercial Land Reform Act of 1995 to provide for the transparency of expropriation and allocation to beneficiaries, a well defined legal role for the Advisory Board, simplified acquisition process and a comprehensive land reform plan against which these can be measured.
Expropriation, which is provided for in the Constitution and in the Act was implemented in 2004 after the willing-seller-willing-buyer approach failed to generate the desired results.
LAC last week launched a book entitled “No Resettlement Available” an assessment of the expropriation principle and its impact on land reform in Namibia, whose aim was to describe the legal process under the Act, offer a critical analysis of what has been accomplished and make recommendations for an effective reform and resettlement programme.
Director of LAC, Norman Tjombe, said so far it was not clear when, why and how farms should be expropriated.
He also said the process benefited the elite rather than the poor.
“The poor farm workers have become poorer than they were,” said Tjombe.
The assessment found that while Ongombo was expropriated for the benefit of the workers, in Okurusu and Marburg, the workers were left out and subsequently disadvantaged.
The study, co-authored by Sidney Harring and Willem Odendaal of the Land, Environment and Development Project said it seems that the three farms “were convenient targets for expropriation for opportunistic and political reasons that have nothing to do with the success of any land reform programme”.
According to the Act, land should be made available to Namibian citizens who do not own or otherwise have the use of agricultural land or adequate agricultural land and foremost to those who have been specially, economically or educationally disadvantaged by past discriminatory laws and practices.
The Government in 2004 announced it would start farm expropriation after it had “witnessed with dismay and outrage how farm workers are left destitute and dumped with their families and belongings on the roadsides by their former employers”. Although the Government had two options for land redistribution, it had opted for the wiling-buyer-willing-seller.
But until 2004, the process was too slow and more than 240ǟ