News on Land

THE minister of urban and rural development, Erastus Uutoni, has applied to the High Court to evict about 2 000 people who allegedly grabbed unserviced municipal land at Okahandja.

Uutoni and the Municipality of Okahandja are asking the court to authorise the eviction of people who allegedly occupied some parts of the town's unserviced land illegally.

The Quezon City government has bought a property in Barangay Bagong Silangan and Payatas  to house some 3,000 informal settlers. 

Mayor Joy Belmonte has signed the deeds of sale of 214,057 square meter property.

“Ito’y umpisa ng hangarin nating mabigyan ng katiyakan sa paninirahan ang mga informal settlers sa ating siyudad (This is the start of our dream to assure informal settlers that they would have their own homes in the city),” Belmonte said, noting that when she was elected mayor, part of her agenda is to address the concerns of the city’s informal settlers.

The efficiency of the one day land title transfer registration had contributed to the country's position in the 'Registering Property' indicator evaluated by the World Bank's 'Doing Business' report.

The Federal Territories Director of Lands and Mines Office (PPTGWP) said Malaysia is ranked a creditable 33rd out of the 190 economies for 2020 in the report.

(Main photo: Lao agricultural expert Sombath Somphone, who went missing in December 2012, in 2005 file photo. Courtesy of Somphone family)

The 10^th annual International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance Sunday offers a fresh reminder that Laos has done little or nothing to investigate citizens, including a highly respected development expert, who have vanished in the communist Southeast Asian nation, human rights groups said.

A group of families in Banteay Meanchey province filed a lawsuit on August 5 against four officials and 13 local businessmen alleging they used forged documents to claim ownership of more than 100 hectares of land in a long-running conflict dating back nearly two decades.

After 30 years of independence, the “land question” is at a critical point in Namibia. Regarding rural land reform, a compromised “willing buyer, willing seller” approach and resettlement-based processes have yielded little success. Not only have they been expensive, inefficient, and often benefitting elites, but today some of those lower-income households that were selected for resettlement wish they had not “benefitted” given the precarious situation in which they find themselves.

Cambodia’s government has strenuously promoted long-term leasing of unused land as Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) to attract investors and encourage development in the impoverished nation, but observers say the policy has resulted in few benefits at the cost of huge social and environmental impacts.

Kampong Speu provincial police and NGO ACNCIPO director Chea Hean stopped nearly 100 people from grabbing more than 200ha illegally in the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary on Wednesday.

The incident occurred at the Trapaing Thmea village in Oral district.

Hean said on Wednesday the people intended to claim the area for private ownership and prepared to build sheds and clear forest land to grow crops. Authorities intervened and the 100 or so families protested.

He said they eventually listened to instructions and returned to their respective homes.

Mbabane: The Human Rights and Governance Consortium under CANGO has called for the amendment of the laws governing the land tenure system to confer security of land ownership and protect communities from unlawful evictions.

This follows the recent evictions which took place at Mangwaneni in Mbabane on August 24, 2020.

(Business in Cameroon) - On August 14, 2020, Ousmanou Biri, the regional president of the association for the cultural development of Cameroonian Mbororos - a community of sheep-breeding nomads well known in Cameroon- sent correspondence to the Minister of Land Affairs  Henri Eyébé Ayissi. In his correspondence, Ousmanou Biri denounced the temporary concession of 100,000 hectares of land in Tignère (department of Faro et Déo) to an investor who wants to use the lands for a livestock project.

Kep provincial police said they have identified a group who used the replacement Khmer New Year holiday to encroach on 4ha of flooded mangrove forests.

Police took down tow sheds measuring 18sqm and removed 100 stone poles used to mark land boundaries in an area inhabited by a community of fishermen in Angkorl village, in Damnak Changaur district’s Angkorl commune.

Provincial administration spokesman Ros Udong told The Post on Monday that having received information on the case, Kep provincial governor Som Piseth instructed officials to inspect the location.