Namibia: Land Reform Weighs Communal Land Benefits | Land Portal

Date: February 5th 2016
Source: AllAfrica.com / New Era

The Ministry of Land Reform is pondering the possibility of increasing the benefits associated with the registration of communal land rights.

Currently, registered communal land owners are only issued with a certificate. One of the possibilities could be that of using the certificate as collateral.

Addressing staff during the annual address at the ministry's headquarters on Wednesday, the Minister of Land Reform Utoni Nujoma said the ministry would this year make enquiries into the communal land market.

"The next financial year will also see an increased effort towards the development of the legal framework around the registration and formalisation of group rights over communal land in line with the mandate to provide secure tenure in communal areas," Nujoma said.

He added that the registration of rights in communal areas is ongoing following government's indefinite extension in 2014. Nujoma says the issue of secure tenure in communal areas as part of the land reform process is a real concern of stakeholders.

"The Communal Land Support Project has been extensively engaged in this respect with positive results," he said, adding that several awareness campaigns in the print, radio and television media have been undertaken with success in an effort to highlight the importance of this process.

The ministry announced it has registered 83 951 communal land rights and 75 082 certificates were issued to applicants countrywide. Furthermore, Nujoma said in line with the land ministry's quest to computerise the process of property registration a total of 50 036 deeds documents were digitized.

With regard to property registration, Nujoma said 21 954 transactions were registered last year whereas a total of N$6.3 million was collected as revenue during the said period.

Furthermore, Nujoma said the ministry is determined to remain in the forefront of the very few countries in Africa that have reliable and up to date topographic maps. He said to this end a systematic revision of the existing topographic maps is under progress as the focus is to maintain a 10-year cycle.

In line with this cycle, the revision of topographic maps of Oshana, Zambezi, Kavango East and West, Ohangwena, Kunene, Oshikoto, Khomas and Omaheke regions has been completed.

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