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Home / Oshana rejects proposal for ancestral land claims
Oshana rejects proposal for ancestral land claims
2018-07-27Staff Report 2 Nuusita Ashipala ONGWEDIVA – Oshana Region’s consultation conference on land ended with a proposal to reject any claim for ancestral land in the country. Attendees also asked that the government do away with the willing buyer, willing seller policy, saying it has been a failure. “Ancestral land claims for restitution are not supported, because every Namibian should get land wherever s/he wants in Namibia,” said the chief development planner at the regional council, Jeckonia Nangolo, who presented the views of people in Oshana. The views were compiled earlier this month prior to the consultative meeting at a pre-consultative meeting that comprised constituency and traditional authority representatives in the region. On the willing buyer, willing seller policy, the region said government should rather spend money on buying the properties on farms and not the land itself. “The willing seller, willing buyer principle has failed, thus it should be reviewed as it did not yield good results,” Nangolo said. The two-day regional consultation conference called for ancestral land to be dealt with as national land and not as an individual tribe’s land. The recent consultative meeting held in Oshana followed two other regional consultations that were conducted in the region in the past two years. The consultative meetings were held to gather views that will be incorporated in the regional presentation at the second land conference in October, which seeks to review the land resolutions made during the first national land conference in 1991. The region further calls for the two land acts, the commercial and communal land reform acts, to be merged into one act that regulates land value at par value. The region also strongly opposed land being distributed to foreigners. During the 2017 consultations, residents charged that large portions of land are still in the hands of foreigners, especially in the northern regions. Hence the call on the government to ensure that foreigners do not own land or have leasehold rights. Also topical recently, residents called for the removal of the redline. They claimit promotes post-colonialism and racism and further disadvantages farmers in the northern communal areas. “Remove it because it promotes unfair business practices between northern and central businesses,” Nangolo said. 2018-07-27Staff Report 2
