WINDHOEK – Popular Democratic Party (PDM) leader McHenry Venaani has questioned the resettling of high profile government officials such as ministers and permanent secretaries, whom he said are well paid to afford land.
Venaani, speaking during a meeting last week with defaulters of Agribank, said government needs to re-assess its mode of resettlement to counter the dissatisfaction of the country’s citizens.

He said he was well aware that permanent secretaries, ministers, and deputy ministers, judges, CEOs and government directors are among the beneficiaries of government resettlement farms, a situation he said needs revisiting.
Venaani says the reason why the Ministry of Land Reform was refusing to release the resettlement list as demanded by Ombudsman John Walters was because the list would reveal the names of high profile beneficiaries.

“We need to relook at the model of resettlement, if you really gotten a farm for 99 years for free, we will say okay I think you can afford, we will help you with Affirmative Action Scheme, we reorganise with refinancing, so that some money can come back because there are a lot of young people in this country that want to farm and if we are giving farms to people that can afford them how will the young people enter the market,” said the outspoken leader.

“We must look at those farms that were given to people that can be able to buy them so that they can buy them because there is no fairness to try to resettle people that are able to afford farms and you are leaving the youth, the women and the poor without farms,” said Venaani.

Government in the last ten years acquired 443 farms, totaling 3 021 959 hectares, through the national resettlement programme (NRP).
The figures are contained in the draft Namibia land statistics booklet which was presented by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) on Thursday.

In addition to the 443 farms, a further 53 farms were transferred from the agriculture ministry for resettlement purposes, taking the total farms to 496 during the period under review.

The booklet shows that from 2008 until June 2018, 5 352 beneficiaries were resettled on the 496 farms, which averages 12 beneficiaries per farm.

In terms of distribution, the //Karas and Hardap regions lead the beneficiary regions as most resettlement farms are found there, with 95 and 91 farms purchased respectively during this period.

The two regions are followed by Omaheke with 88, Otjozondjupa 60, Erongo 25 and Oshikoto with 17 farms.

Kunene, including the Queen Sofia Resettlement Project and Khomas have the least resettlement farms – 16, 15 and 14, respectively.

“Group resettlement projects, San development projects and cooperatives are part of the total figure of 5 352 beneficiaries,” it reads further.