No title deeds for rural areas- Ziyambi says

HON. ZIYAMBI:  Thank you Hon. Member for the supplementary question.  People did not go to war because of title deeds but it was an issue of right to land, which is a very critical issue.  We want to compare title deeds in urban centres with land in the rural areas.  I do not believe that the Chinese are taking over people’s land, whether it is those in mining or farming.  When the Mines and Minerals Act comes to this august House, it is going to clarify a lot of issues.  However, land in the rural areas is not sold.  There are Chinese or white people who are taking over such land and no one is selling such land to them but there are people who were coming to prospect for minerals.  You will discover that the Hon. Member has a right to engage us in how the Land Tenure Act should be reviewed.  I thank you.

HON. NDUNA:  Thank you Madam Speaker.  I want to know, if it pleases the Hon. Minister, to attach Section 72 (7) (c) of the Constitution which is the background of the issue of this land.  The land which is agricultural is the one that has now been urbanised through the master plan for the urban expansion.  So the urban land is now residing in the agricultural land.  Fast forward, when you now bring the agricultural land into the urban society, Section 205 (1) (c) of the Urban Councils Act has three provisions that speak to selling the land, leasing and also giving it for free.  Section 152 (1) (a) of the same Urban Councils Act speaks to those three issues as well.  Would it please the Minister to align those provisions of the Act of Parliament to the Constitution, which is sui-generis? Section 2 says it should be repudiated to the extent of inconsistency if it is inconsistent with the Constitution so that the 10 hectares of land which is being given for free in the agricultural land can also be given with title for free in the urban society.  Would it please the Minister that the 10hectares which is now 100 000 ha and if it is sold to the urbanites costs US$25 million which all the civil servants will not have?  Would it please the Minister to align those provisions of the Act of Parliament with the Constitution so that the people can at least have 200sq meters of agricultural land which has title deeds, which land is being given for free to the agricultural society?   The urbanites are made to buy that land because we have not aligned the Urban Councils Act with the Constitution.  Would it please the Minister to give title to the agricultural land to the urbanites in the same way that we are giving title to those that are in the rural side?  I say this with conviction because I have also been incarcerated for misalignment.

HON. ZIYAMBI:  Thank you Hon. Speaker ma’am.  I am not too sure I understood what Hon. Nduna is trying to say.  We have urban land that will be designated by the relevant Minister as urban land.  Then we have communal land and agricultural land.  The Minister of Lands and Agriculture is the one who transfers the land upon gazetting when it has been designated urban land.  Once it is urban land, then it can be subdivided and there will be value addition because you need to do the necessary processes to ensure that people stay in that particular area.  So, let us differentiate land that has been converted for urban development to agricultural land and State land that is vested with the Minister of Lands and Agriculture. 

My position is, we have a land tenure system within the communal land and our agricultural sector that exists.  If we need a conversation of changing that, then as a people, we can start that conversation.  However, currently we have a system that is there and let us not confuse it either with our war of liberation or our incarceration or whatever.  It is the system that is there now.  I thank you.

HON. NDUNA:  Point of clarity Madam Speaker Ma’am.  Will it please the Minister to align those provisions of the Urban Councils Act expeditiously with the Constitution?  That question has not been answered.

THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Your problem Hon. Nduna is that you do not ask a straight forward question but you go round in circles.

HON. NDUNA: It is not for the faint hearted Madam Speaker Ma’am.  Let him take his time.

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