State land amendment enacted

THE amendment to the State Lands Act of 1945 was much needed as many Fijians are living without a secure tenure. The Attorney-General and Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, while bringing the Amendment Bill to Parliament last week which was later passed, said through the change proposed, the Director of Lands will now have the powers to cancel lease for lessees who no longer occupy State land. Explaining the rationale behind the amendment, the A-G said under the current provisions, most State leases have a condition in that if a state lease was obtained, the lessee will need the consent of the Director of Lands to subdivide the land, sell the land or sell part of the land.

However, over the past 30 or 40 years informal arrangements have been struck between lessees and others who needed land as they had nowhere else to go.

“In particular after 1987, a lot of people who were dispossessed of their land, the leases that they had or whose leases were not renewed, essentially became refugees in their own country in terms of displaced people, so a lot of farmers or people who owned State land made arrangements with them.”

The A-G said such arrangements were found in certain parts of the country like Nadi - in Naidovi, Navo, Nasau, Solovi, Malolo Transmitter Road (vast areas), but the occupants do not have security of tenure.

“They do not build permanent homes because they think that they may be booted out at any time so they do not actually go to the banks to build a nice concrete home.” He explained that the Director of Lands, under the current arrangements under the law, had to give notice to the person who had the lease in terms of them breaching it.

The A-G said, “The notice either cannot be served because the person is nowhere to be found or it has to be passed on”.

He said during consultations held over a few months, many of these groups made various submissions and some of them were extremely frustrated as they have been there for decades without any proper title being issued to them.

“The Director of Lands, her hands are tied. She cannot move on it because the current law does not allow her to do so. A lot of the people who actually sold them the land, they are nowhere to be found or they have passed on.”

He said a system that has been put in place in the amendment that provides for a Committee chaired by the permanent secretary for Housing and Community Development, and consists of the permanent secretary for Lands, Solicitor-General and anyone else such as the Town and Country director. “Once they have actually established that in this particular area so and so had actually sold off their land to these people, albeit illegally under the law technically speaking, and they have been occupying this land now for the past 30 to 40 years, then they will be able to then cancel the original lease and be able to then issue them with the leases and the Director of Lands can actually do that,” the A-G said.

The amendment was passed Parliament and has now been enacted.