The land, property and social wealth expropriation, which were carried out by successive colonial administrations was the genesis of today’s inequality, poverty and the misery of many black Namibians.
Many people are landless in their own country today and the land, which belonged to their ancestors, is now the property of those whose ancestors expropriated it through colonial arrangements. The struggle for independence partially aimed to remedy the land situation. After independence government tried to solve this issue, but I can see some negative developments in solving this very serious problem.
Foreigners who have access to large financial resources in their countries are allowed to buy land in this country while most citizens of the country who cannot afford or compete with such foreigners are seeing their motherland becoming the property of such foreigners.
The key question is what is the difference between a stretch of land owned by foreigners back then, and one owned by foreigners now? How does it feel to those who fought for independence and still see their land becoming the property of other people?
While we have no problem allowing foreigners to come and settle in this country there is a problem of doing that at the expense of our own needy people. There are those who argue that if land is not sold to foreigners it will discourage foreign investors from investing in Namibia.
I beg to disagree, because there are other countries in the world that do not sell land to foreigners, but investors are not discouraged by that policy. Land is the most vital and indispensable heritage of all the people of a given country and we have to make sure that we jealously protect it.
There is nothing wrong for other people to come and use the land, but it must be done in such a way that they get this vital asset on a contract basis – or we would soon find ourselves foreigners in our own country.
Our foreign friends and investors are more than welcome in our country, but that does not mean that we have to give away our land, which is the basis of our nation’s survival.
Dr Ngarikutuke Tjiriange
Windhoek