Key Issues:
- Foreigners can only get land if they partner with local
- Foreigners who have freehold land but don't get citizenship within 7 years will see it converted to leasehold
- Chiefs no longer have sole say over land - Village committees will instead be the new authority
- Opposition say the bill is too complex and has been rushed
- NGOs say it still ignores women
- Read the story, don't be lazy and not just want everything summarized!
Parliament on Friday finally passed
into law the controversial land bill which government says will check land
related malpractices in the country; the opposition however says the bill has
been rushed.
Democratic Progressive Party
spokesperson, Nicholas Dausi said the bill has been rushed because there are
complex areas in the bill that need explaining and clarification.
“…chiefs and village headmen have
raised few questions saying on the issue of public land, private land,
acquisition of land have to be detailed clearly. The issue of land tribunals,
do our traditional leaders understand clearly or is it made to take away their
traditional inherent powers over customary land?
“We thought the bill should be
referred back to the relevant committee, that is the legal affairs committee,
so that these issues should be re-looked into because any Act, any law of a
country it concerns should be understood better by that country’s citizens than
anybody else. So I think there are more questions to the land bill than answers,”
said Dausi.
But minister of lands and housing who
is also leader of the house Henry Phoya in an interview after the session that
passed the bills, played down the fears by the bills critics saying the land
bill was just a general bill and that upcoming bills such as customary law bill
will explain some issues better.
“Chiefs will no longer be able to
make unilateral decisions insofar as allocations of land are concerned we will
have to have village committees. So what has been the case in the past whereby
villagers would just see someone, a foreigner, laying claim to a piece of land
will be a thing of the past,” said Phoya.
Asked about the gender inequality
that the bill has been accused of sustaining, Phoya said the allegations are
untrue as the bill grants equal access to both male and females.
On the concerns of corruption by land
ministry officials, Phoya said government set to strengthening the land
management issues in the land related bills to close loopholes that allow for
corruption.
Kezzie Msukwa, Chairperson of Legal
Affairs Committee of Parliament supported the bill saying the bill will now
make it hard for foreigners to acquire land as the Act requires that foreigners partner with
Malawians if they want to buy land.
The freehold land being held by
foreigners also dominated and divided parliamentarians during the debate on the
bill. Some even alleged that all the prime land in Malawi is being held by
foreigners under this schedule.
“The bill addresses that issue
directly, it states that when a foreigner has freehold title over a piece of
land and he does not obtain Malawian citizenship within a period of 7 years
from the time of enactment of this law, that land shall be converted to
leasehold,” said Phoya.
ActionAid Malawi Women’s Rights Coordinator,
Wezi Moyo speaking at a recent a workshop organised for women farmers to
discuss land related bills said the bill would heavily disempower women.
“This bill is going to disempower
women in big way, it is carrying over the problems that are in the customary
land system of land distribution which does don't accord women equal rights to
access and control of land for example the bill is talking about redistributing
the land and registration when women don't have the land, how are women going
to register land if they don't own it?
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| Malawi soil: out of reach of foreigners, women |
Justin Dzonzi, human rights lawyer
and legal consultant added his worry on the new bill saying the bill is useless
if it doesn't abolish or address the customary law first.
“…it says every person with customary
land can register it in his or her name or in joint names as a unit, now
imagine a husband and wife who jointly own land in a patrilineal set up and the
husband dies, what happens to the land? The bill says administration of the law
will be according to customary law which in this case means that the wife
cannot have that land,” said Dzonzi.
