Land allocation to increase by 500%

Significant improvement, the first in

over 20 years

This is not a waiting list but an

application list – Mzwinila Ploughing field land owners resist

compensation

It has been quite a fruitful year in which government recorded significant improvement in the number of plots allocated annually, the first in over 20 years. Now as the year comes to an end, the government expects to increase the average annual allocation of plots at least by 500% during the present financial year of 2022/2023 and if possible stretch allocations to an ambitious target of 100,000 plots.

During the State of the Nation Address (SONA) last month, President Mokgweetsi Masisi revealed that government had set a target to allocate 100,000 plots by end of the financial year and as at the end of November, 33,000 plots were allocated in over eight months. Masisi emphasised that they are determined to effectively address the challenge of land allocation to Batswana throughout the country and end the long waiting lists.

Speaking of waiting lists, this week in Parliament the Minister of Lands and Water Affairs Kefentse Mzwinila revealed that the current national application list stands at 558,919 on tribal land while in cities, towns and townships the application list stands at 73,041 and Gaborone alone accounts for 21,400. He said the number of plots allocated in the last five years, not including the current year in tribal land, stands at 51,272 while in cities, towns and townships there were 3,742 plots and out of these 1,056 were allocated in Gaborone.

“The government is concerned about issues relating to management of waiting lists across different land authorities brought about by delays in land allocations. To address this, the ministry through all Land Boards has implemented the expeditious delivery of land of unserviced plots to meet the demand of residential plots across the country,” he said. Mzwinila was responding to a question from the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gaborone North, Mpho Balopi who had asked the Minister of Lands and Water Affairs to brief Parliament on the situation of residential plot allocation in Botswana.

Mzwinila said their experience is that the current waiting list is not a true reflection of those who need plots. He indicated that in tribal land, they have begun the vetting process and realised that applicants were already allocated plots elsewhere in the country. “This is not a waiting list but an application list. Furthermore, some applicants are returning plots previously allocated to them so that they can be allocated land at the areas of priority they thus want to swap plots. The application list is not a reflection of the waiting list,” he highlighted.

He also pointed out that most of their allocations in the past few months especially the third of the people who come for allocations already have plots and they were forced to turn them down. Mzwinila also acknowledged that his ministry has challenges in land acquisition as ploughing fields land owners are resisting compensation amounts hence the delay in acquiring the ploughing fields.

“Other factors contributing to the delay are reflective of how lengthy the land delivery process is. It entails steps such as acquisition of land by the land authority for village expansion, development of detailed layouts or layout plans by the planning authorities, demarcation of plots by the land authority and approval of the survey diagrams, vetting of application lists before allocations, interviews and physical allocation of plots by the land authorities. In addition, lack funding to acquire land to augment either state land or tribal land is a persistent challenge,” he further revealed.

Mzwinila also disclosed that on average it costs P20,000 per hectare to acquire land. He also said the cost of outsourcing preparing of detailed layouts costs P4,000 per hectare while conducting strategic environmental assessment costs P3,000 per hectare. “The cost of survey of a single plot is estimated at around P700 per plot. Lack of financial resources also hinders us from servicing plots before allocation in state land. Inadequate resources for land preparation including human resources and equipment used in planning and surveying are other challenges,” he added.

Mzwinila said they are worried that some people fail to honour invitations to appear before the Land Boards during different land allocations. “Sometimes we find that that when we call we only get 50% of the people we call for plot allocations,” he emphasised.

The issue of Batswana not turning up for land allocation interviews was recently underlined by the Botswana Association of Tribal Land Authorities (BATLA) president, Johane Chenjekwa who told this publication in an interview that over 10,000 Batswana had failed to turn up for Land Board allocation interviews in Chobe, Tawana, Gantsi, Kgalagadi as of last month. Chenjekwa said some Land Boards have readily available plots with no waiting lists and he urged those eligible for allocation to consider alternative areas with low or no waiting lists in Land Boards such as Kgalagadi, Chobe, Gantsi and Tawana.

He said figures could actually be higher had more Batswana turned up for allocation interviews. “I sincerely hope Batswana will heed to His Excellency’s appeal to Batswana to honour Land Boards allocation interviews in order to expedite achievement of the allocation target,” Chenjekwa advised. Besides some people snubbing interviews, Chenjekwa said he was confident that the allocation target of 100,000 plots will be achieved and should be met by the end of the government financial year March, 31, 2023.

On the bright side and with the land allocation waiting list forever a headache for both the citizens and the government, the latter has recorded a significant improvement in the number of plots allocated annually, the first in over 20 years. Masisi’s last month SONA speech revealed the fact that the land allocation stood at over 33,000 in over eight months as of November 2022 was a huge increase from an annual average of about 8,330 plots per year in the last 20 years. It meant that the number of plots allocated annually has more than tripled.

Asked how they managed to achieve the target, Chenjekwa said the Land Boards as members of BATLA have over the years made concerted efforts to advocate government to prioritise inter-Ministerial functions in the land delivery process (e.g. layout plans from Councils, Strategic Environmental Assessments from the Department of Environmental Affairs, outsourcing Surveys from the Private Sector).

He said the government then established a Cabinet Sub Committee in 2021 to look into accelerating land allocations which resulted in the Ministry of Lands and Water Affairs in conjunction with Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development working together to accelerate development of new detailed layout plans from areas identified for acquisition for village expansion. “The different Land Boards also submitted a list of detailed layout plans that contained the locations and number of plots in each layout. This indicated that there were 109 detailed layout plans that have been approved by the different District Councils, containing a cumulative 63,126 plots. The ministry has decided to outsource to private land surveyors for these detailed layout plans so that the plots will be ready for allocation by the end of the financial year,” he further highlighted.

Chenjekwa also indicated that the Land Boards have increased the frequency of Board sittings to expedite land allocations. In order to cope with the intensified workload, the Land Boards continue to make efforts in realigning and streamlining activities to rationalise available resources to ensure that manpower is re-aligned to deliver ongoing land allocations. He said there are also concerted efforts by BATLA and the Land Boards to intensify publicity across various communication platforms to increase the level of attendance by applicants during Boards

sittings.