Absalom Shigwedha
13 May 2008
DEPUTY Minister of Lands Henock ya Kasita says any Namibian can be resettled anywhere.
Ya Kasita was responding to questions in the National Council yesterday during the Budget debate.
He said that it was agreed at the 1991 Land Conference that there would be no claims of ancestral land in Namibia.
Recently, there has been an outcry that people from elsewhere are being resettled in regions where the local people are landless, especially in the South.
Ya Kasita said this was the reason why each region had a resettlement committee to identify people who needed to be resettled.
He said the names of such people were then sent to Windhoek where it would be decided where the people should be resettled.
On applications for traditional customary land rights, Ya Kasita said no such requests were received from the Kavango and Caprivi regions in the 2007-2008 financial year.
Ya Kasita said his Ministry was still consulting with traditional authorities in the two regions.
Swapo MP Dorothy Kabula, from the Caprivi Region, wanted to know from Ya Kasita why no such applications had been received from the two regions.
Ya Kasita said it was probably because some traditional authorities in these regions had discouraged their subjects from seeking such rights.
He said some traditional authorities felt that giving people customary land rights would be tantamount to alienating such land from the traditional authority.
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