Kuvee Kangueehi
14 October 2008
Windhoek — The Minister of Lands and Resettlement Alpheus !Naruseb has called on the Land Reform Advisory Council to look at a strategy in which the ministry would speedily address special cases of people in need of land.
!Naruseb said the special cases could be ex-farm workers evicted from farms and living on road corridors, resettled beneficiaries on group resettlement farms who want to expand their farming operations and farmers in overcrowded communal areas.
The minister made the call yesterday as he officially opened a three-day workshop on the Land Reform Advisory Commission, which kicked off in the capital.
The workshop is to access and review the methods and procedures currently being used by all structures of the ministry tasked with functions such as farm acquisition, beneficiary selection, valuation, expropriation, post-settlement support and how the ministry can further accelerate performance in terms of service delivery.
!Naruseb said the commissioners must look at innovative approaches of assisting vulnerable communities and urged them to develop a system that would respond to the critical needs of some groups and develop mechanisms of allocating land, in tandem with the traditional approach of individual applications for advertised allotments.
"The commissioners could, in collaboration with regional councils, develop a prioritised list of groups that require urgent resettlement and reserve a quota of allotments to these special groups."
The minister further urged the commissioners to ensure that the Government Land Reform Plan adopted in 2005 is implemented.
The plan contains a model for support packages that includes grants and credit facilities. And !Naruseb said it is the only way that resettlement beneficiaries can play their role as farmers.
"It is not the intention of Government to turn the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement officials into agriculturalists but we should strive to bring other ministries on board."
He noted that resettlement farmers should be treated as other farmers and receive the support that commercial farmers receive.
The minister said most members of the public have questioned the criteria applied in allocating land and the resettlement must also be transparent.
"The criteria used to select beneficiaries of resettlement should be clear and transparent, to an extent that we should be able to tell someone why he was not successful."
The minister added that the ministry must strive to select the most deserving candidates - those who have the knowledge and capacity to excel as farmers.
"The focus of resettlement should be to maximize agricultural production."
He further urged the commissioners to hasten and finalise draft criteria for resettlement as the document is long overdue.
During the past 10 years of independence, projects such as Excelsior Rural Development Project, Westfallen, Bernafey, Skoonheid, Drimiopsis, Mangheti Dune, Bravo, Tsintsabis, Otjihao, Onandandja, Bagani, Omega and Chetto were established and fall under the jurisdiction of the resettlement division.
Through the resettlement programme, some previously disadvantaged communities, such as the San, the Ex-Plan Combatants and displaced farm workers were provided with housing and land for agricultural activities.
Since the inception of the resettlement programme, the ministry has constructed and allocated 160 houses for some beneficiaries in the various regions of the country.
The ministry has already introduced a long-term lease agreement with the incumbent beneficiaries of the resettlement programme.
This gives a new impetus to the resettlement programme in general and will raise revenue to secure the long-term sustainability of the programme.
Lease agreements will encourage beneficiaries to increase the productivity of their respective plots and to add value to the resettlement programme.
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