HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. The initial criteria is in every local authority area, the local authority is aware of people who are staying in houses but they do not have title deeds. The first port of call is to ensure that they visit the said local authority and get from their database, names of who occupy houses in that particular locality. There are visits to verify if indeed those people are the bonafide owners of those places. Once all that has been done, we then go further to start processing the papers so that the necessary deeds can come out.
HON. BITI: My question is directed to the Leader of the House, Hon. Ziyambi, the Minister of Justice. Minister, I was very pleased with the indications and the Government actions that are being taken towards the provision of title deeds to urban dwellers, but 70% of our people actually live in communal lands occupying about 19 million hectares of land. Despite the war of liberation that we fought, people in communal lands actually do not have land rights. Section 4 of the Communal Lands Act actually diverts them from land. As a person who comes from Dotito, I am wondering – yes it is okay to give title deeds to people in Mufakose, Glenview and Vhengere but what about us in Murewa South, Dotito and Chiendambuya whose land was taken away by white people and dispossessed through the Land Apportionment Act of 1941? Up to now – 43 years after independence, we cannot own land in our own rural areas. We now have Chinese people and the likes of Billy Rautenbach coming to take our land. Can you address the issue of our own land rights for us people who live in communal lands?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Madam Speaker for the question that Hon. Biti asked. My response is that there is a difference between the processes that we are doing to issue title deeds to urban dwellers and the land tenure system within agricultural and communal areas. We are issuing title deeds in urban areas because that is exactly what is supposed to have been there within the confines of the laws currently. That exercise is being done to satisfy what should have been done. So there is a separation between that and the issue of title deeds and the land tenure system within communal areas and where we have rural land for agriculture.
Coming to the issue of title deeds within the communal areas and other designated land tenure systems that is a conversation that as Zimbabweans we can start but currently, the communal land is vested in the President. It is for the people and should not be sold. Equally, agricultural land, we have a tenure system that obtains now of offer letters and 99-year leases. That is what is obtaining but the Hon. Member is not precluded from starting a conversation to say let us come up with a different land tenure system. If a policy is adopted in that regard then we can move in that direction but the urban title deed process, let us not mix it with historical issues that arose out of the land tenure system that was brought upon by the colonisers. I thank you.
HON. BITI: Madam Speaker ma’am, I would like to pose my supplementary question to the Minister. We went for war to fight for land and the Hon. Minister is saying that every citizen of this country has the right to own a house in whatever part of the country. However, people are not getting the land and you find some people coming to take away that land, claiming to be owners of that land. We need to examine the land tenure policy because we had people playing different roles as war collaborators and war veterans but you find that even village heads and traditional leaders are not empowered to deal with land tenure issues; for those who come from rural areas and need land. Some have their ancestors’ graves in different localities but do not have legal right to that land. I thank you.
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