WHY IT TAKES AGES FOR LAND BOARDS TO AVAIL LAND FOR ALLOCATION TO BATSWANA A THREAD

Many Batswana, including yours truly have seen several years (running into a couple of decades for some) pass by without having been allocated a piece of land at their respective tribal land

... territory choice of application. Here I try to decipher a few reasons why it takes ages to get land ready for allocation by any authority.

Owing to Developmental plans or Land use plans in each village, land is zoned according to certain uses such as residential, arable

or pastoral. Within the residential zone which is the focus of my thread, therein exist ploughing fields, allocated years ago when villages were still very small in size, which are usually earmarked for repossession and compensation to right holders with the intention of...

demarcation into residential plot.

This is mostly the first step in land allocation. Therefore, Land Boards have to make this decision to repossess fields if the land is occupied. And most Land Boards fail at this very stage. Boards are always occupied with many other ...

land management matters such as transfers, inheritances, dispute resolutions, LAPCAS and other general administrative issues that this which is the first step towards availing land for allocation is largely neglected.

SIDEBAR
Guys I urge you all to apply for Land Board Membership positions so that you can advocate for this and many other land issues; availing of land for allocation which is the primary mandate of any Land Board. Applications are currently being received until July 3rd.

The process of land repossession and compensation for equitable distribution is a lengthy and very costly one for any land authority to undertake. Therefore, due to 'budget constraints' these are done in bits and patches in various fiscal years. Many a times, Boards encounter ...

...cost overruns due to litigation and/or utter incompetence.

Many Batswana, understandably so, are unwilling to relinquish rights to the said land without adequate compensation. 'Adequate' is the most controversial term in the compensation legislation.

Many Batswana have decried that the compensation guidelines are outdated and argue that they impoverished the citizenry for so long. However, it is the interpretation of many Boards that, compensation, as per the compensation guidelines, is adequate and accordingly legal...

in that tribal land in its nature is a shared community commodity as the word TRIBAL postulates in contrast to STATE/FREEHOLD LAND. They argue that land is GIVEN to Batswana free of charge, for use, therefore when the land is repossessed for the greater good ...

(allocating residential plots to morafe), the land cannot be 'bought'. However, the Board only compensate the title holder for DEVELOPMENTS made on the said tribal land.

For many years, Boards have struggled to complete land repossession processes within reasonable periods.

It is worth noting,Land Board Membership tenures are on a 3-year cycle, meaning new members are appointed to continue and/or complete processes started by previous Boards giving rise to gaps in proper administration of the process, corruption and many other detriments.

Nonetheless, once the process of repossession is complete and/or in cases where there is no need for the process, and land is availed, then many other technical steps would begin to roll out.

The first one is Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

You will realize that to conduct SEA does not fall under the ambit of the Land Boards but rather that of the Planning Authorities - external stakeholders. It is therefore now the prerogative of Councils to budget and plan for this exercise, something that has proved ...

a challenge in the past due to uncoordinated planning and out-of-sync priorities between Land Boards and Planning Authorities. When SEA is completed, Land Boards has to SURVEY the land and produce base maps for the said land which are submitted back to the Planning Authority.

Then the Planning Authority have to PLAN and produce a DETAILED LAYOUT of the land. This does not refer to the mere action of dividing land into plots as many Batswana would put, but a rather technical and sophisticated process of creating organized land parcels, integrating all

different uses such as passage, streets, roads and roads reserve, way-leave for utilities, open spaces etc. all this in compliance with the planning parameters, development plans and codes. This has proved to be a lengthy exercise (though I cannot explain,I simply don't know why)

The Board is consulted at final drafting for input where they can make amendments eg. proposing more commercial plots in the layout. The Planning Authority would then make changes incorporating the proposals in so far as applicable until such a time when the Board approves.

SIDEBAR 2
The Planning Authority can be complicit in delaying with production of detailed layout therefore, Batswana should in some instances hold the Council accountable to certain delays in land allocation process.

After the layout has been Approved, the Surveys office in the Land Board have to put what is on paper on to the land. PHYSICAL DEMARCATION. However, before actual pegs can be put on the ground, the Surveyors have to compute measurements, angles & coordinates on to the layout.

For whole process to be completed, The Department of Surveys and Mapping, (not the one in the Land Board), has to approve that the computations of the detailed layout and the land are in agreement. This is also where another delay occurs as some approvals take as long as 3 years.

It is after all these processes that the Land Board can now go ahead to allocate land to Batswana.

One factor that contribute immensely to delayed allocation is the proliferation of illegal occupants (commonly known albeit offensively so as SQUATTERS). When Boards identify pockets of land that can be availed for allocation, they find such lands occupied by people illegally.

The process of evicting illegal occupants from the said land is also a daunting one as the illegal occupants are given a hearing by the Sub Land Board and ordered to vacate within a certain period of time. When that period has elapsed and the occupant has not complied,

the Sub Land Board escalates the matter to the Main Land Board which affords the occupant a hearing as well. The Board orders the occupant to also vacate from the illegally occupied land. Failure to do so the Land Board takes the matter to Court, Land Tribunal

An eviction order is instituted and when in contempt, the Yellow Monster is called in to play. This process could also drag into years depending on a number of factors such as political influence, incompetency and/or inefficiencies on the part of the Board, or the Court.

In the end, the snail speed of land allocation can be accounted to a whole lot of people. Even politicians as law makers who have full knowledge of policies and legislation that were made by them, always put blame on just the Land Board without coming up with solutions or ...

ways of improving efficiency in the process to allow for expedited land allocation.
The current regime has of recent amended the Botswana Land Policy, Development Code, Agrotoursim Policy etc. to help Batswana benefit from their land especially Agricultural Land ...

such benefit including allowing Batswana with ploughing fields change of land use that could create mini Phakalanes. These changes, however noble and a welcome development, have failed to address the issue of availing land for allocation.

In fact, it empowers Batswana to not relinquish their rights to ploughing fields within the radii of village boundaries and exacerbating the difficulties Boards have encountered in acquiring and repossessing ploughing fields for residential plots.

END