Land conference postponed ELLANIE SMIT The second national land reform conference has been postponed indefinitely due to severe financial constraints and the prolonged drought.
This is according to land reform minister Utoni Nujoma, who announced yesterday that the conference, which was supposed to take place in November and was the first to be held since the watershed land conference of 1991, would be postponed until adequate resources were available.
Nujoma said his ministry had not been spared the necessary budgetary cuts, which affected its capacity to deliver.
He said hosting a conference of that magnitude required a considerable budget and the ministry did not have the funding at its disposal in this financial year.
Nujoma stressed that other platforms would be made available to continue engagement on the matter with stakeholders.
Since the conference was officially launched on 24 August this year no date, venue or other details have been announced.
Nujoma yesterday said that the Harambee Prosperity Plan directed the ministry to host the second land conference before December this year.
He said in addition to the economic challenges the country has been experiencing, severe droughts have left the productive sectors of the country under threat while the agricultural sector is in disarray, compromised and in need of assistance.
“The situation is further compounded by the continued low levels of all the national dams and water shortages in most rural and urban centres. This is forcing our government to re-prioritise and direct available resources to critical sectors.”
Nujoma added that the initiative to host a second land conference was a timely and important intervention that would immensely benefit the country 25 years after of implementing the 24 resolutions adopted at the first land conference.
The ministry will continue to systematically work to further advance the land reform process in an orderly manner in line with the current policy and legal framework.
He said to support some of the critical policy proposals the ministry finalised the draft Land Bill that is now being scrutinised by legal drafters of the justice ministry. It is anticipated that the bill will be tabled in the National Assembly during its current session.
He added that the government is aware of the acute demand for land for agricultural purposes and that it is committed to a transparent, fair and equitable land reform process that is guided by the policy and legal framework.
Meanwhile, Uhuru Dempers of the Namibian Non-Governmental Organisations Forum (Nangof) has told Namibian Sun that they are delighted with the decision to postpone the conference, but at the same time concerned that it has been postponed indefinitely.
Nangof has in the past months urged government to postpone the land reform conference, saying that it should be better organised and include all stakeholders.
Dempers blamed the postponement of the conference not only on financial constraints, but said that the ministry was not properly prepared to host the conference and that there was no stakeholder consultation.
He pointed out that the proposed agenda for the conference was not made available and that there was no critical assessment done of the 24 resolutions taken at the first national land reform conference and land reform policies.
Dempers said Nangof would continue with its consultations in the regions. This week consultations are taking place at Keetmanshoop.
“This will just give us more time to plan,” he said.
At the launch of the conference the ministry said that at independence the government inherited a skewed land distribution with 36.2 million hectares owned by 4 664 advantaged farmers and 150 000 families occupying 33.5 million hectares of communal land. The ministry said that only 181 commercial farms were owned by black farmers.
According to the ministry it has acquired 502 farms measuring 3.1 million hectares out of a target of 5 million hectares through the ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ principle at a cost of N$1.7 billion.
At least 5 231 families have been resettled.
Under the Affirmative Action Loan Scheme programme a total of 3.4 million hectares have been acquired at a cost of N$762 million.