Govt surveying country`s 12,000 villages- Prof Tibaijuka

 
The value of land is well reconciled as high and most everyone’s goal is to secure some for themselves and their families.

As such it should follow that rural folks, who occupy vast tracks of land are sitting on a lot of wealth but because it is not surveyed and they have no title deeds to prove their ownership renders their land ‘dead capital’.

Not for long, for the land planning that started in 2011 is expected to cover all 12,000 villages in Tanzania, at least 5,000 villages every year.
 
“This exercise should also identify villages with extra land in which big plantations can be established, so that there would be a clear list that will be made available to investors…"
 
Minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, Prof Anna Tibaijuka, issued the directive during the inauguration of a workshop to deliberate regulations of the Land laws.
 
She also conceded the lack of competent Land experts who would survey the plots and issue management advice.
 
So in recognition of the nation’s 70 per cent shortage of land experts, she instructed district councils in the country to ensure stringent hiring procedures to sift out qualified land experts.
 
In her speech, read on her behalf by the Morogoro Regional Commissioner, Joel Bendera, the minister asserted that without these experts, the nation cannot undertake accurate surveys and plan proper land use.
 
Prof Tibaijuka stressed that regulations and proper plans as well as effective land management are the basis to putting in place acceptable procedures that will not only serve as guidelines in land disputes but also to enhance land occupancy procedures.
 
The regulations are vital for the implementation of the so termed ‘five pillars’ of the Kilimo Kwanza initiative noting that land is crucial for any green revolution.
 
Further, she explained that surveying village boundaries is the initial step towards acceptable land plans and to secure persons right of ownership opening avenues for loans and other financial transaction with the land asset serving for collateral.
 
She therefore challenged theNational Commission on Land Planning and Management to cooperate with district councils so that implementation of land policies would be efficiently applied to the letter especially in rural areas.
 
She also said that the regulations should address the question of both internal and external investors in land so that both capital intensive agriculture and other forms of agriculture would be implemented accordingly.
 
The National Commission for Land Planning and Management Director General, Gerald Mango, had but one request to Tanzanians, urging the nation to desist from the misconception that large land investors were in one way or another a threat to the country but to be rest assured that they are sent to specific areas where there was enough land for the purpose.
 
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

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