Call for strong land policy
OUR country is in dire need of a strong land policy framework that will ensure that land ownership with title deeds must be the preserve and a sovereign right of Zambians where foreigners can only sub-lease or rent from us, Bwana Mkubwa PF Member of Parliament Dr Jonas Chanda observed.
Dr Chanda condemned the sale of huge tracts of land to foreign entities by some unpatriotic Zambians, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of citizens without compensation.
He however thanked President Edgar Lungu for his relentless push for the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to bring a revised Land Act and policy to Parliament urgently, saying that was the only way Zambians will be guaranteed of total security on land ownership unlike the current situation where locals were getting displaced from their own pieces of land for no reason.
He said Zambians must realise that Zambia’s land mass of 752,614 square kilometres was limited and that “God was no longer in the business of creating new land” for countries that mismanaged their natural resources, none of the surrounding eight neighbouring countries would donate any extra land to Zambia.
“Zambia urgently needs a strong land policy framework which ensures that land ownership with title deeds must be a preserve and a sovereign right of Zambians only, while foreign individuals and investors must sub-lease or rent land from Zambians,” Dr. Chanda said.
He said the Auditor General’s report on land management system had revealed troubling findings in the land sector which showed that the criteria used in allocation of land was in conflict with the objective of equitable access to land by ordinary citizens, a situation he said favoured the wealthy while the less privileged were marginalised.
He noted that the increased cases of double allocation of plots in all councils, failure to implement the Government policy of 2010 on women empowerment by accessing 30 percent of all land advertised and the failure to decentralise functions resulting in delays in processing offer letters and title deeds remained huge challenges in land distribution.
He also observed that as cited in the AG’s report, there was still rampant encroachment of land earmarked for development adding that the absence of a land policy had led to the failure to secure rights over land and to provide for sustainable socio-economic development, investment and poverty reduction.
He cited the sale of land occupied by over 5,000 residents at Old Regiment compound in Bwana Mkubwa Constituency in Ndola to an Oil Marketing Company (OMC) which even obtained an eviction notice from court to remove the residents from land they had occupied and built on since 1963 as one of the social evils that must be stopped.