LAND ISSUES WILL HAUNT US FOREVER

 Sir,

Thank you for allowing me space in your widely read newspaper to express my insights into land issues that are currently engulfing Eswatini. 

Concerns about land range from: (i) land disputes; (ii) mushrooming homesteads; (iii) wrong use of land; (iv) sale of land (including grabbing of land); (v) deprivation of OVCs, including widows and (vi) idling land. It must be noted that some of the concerns are not just my insights but have been revealed through research and formal consultations with emaSwati. 

The population of the country continues to grow at an alarming rate, while land is not increasing at all. 

Allocated

People are continuously being allocated land to build homesteads. 

Sometimes, people are given land where there is ownership conflict or even in wrong areas such as arable land or grazing land. 

There is deliberate action by title deed land owners where arable land is allocated to dwellings. The latter can be observed in some areas where large pieces of land have been allocated for buildings. Just a departure from the focus of this article, how can we achieve food security when some of our fertile land is allocated for building houses?

To crown it all, government has spent large sums of money on two missions. The first mission was to develop a land policy in the late 1990s. 

The second mission was to develop a resettlement policy which was led by former Minister Gcokoma Dlamini. 

Documents

What happened to these two important documents? Who cares? I thought that the resettlement policy would combine well with the land policy. The two documents would have addressed some of the nagging land issues. 

Like the resettlement policy, the land policy must have gone under the carpet. It is my view that as long as such projects are seen as an individual person’s initiative, the land issue will continue to haunt us. 

Let available land be used accordingly so that arable land is put under productive farming. The resettlement policy document has valuable information that could help address some of the unresolved land issues. 

Please let no money be wasted on engaging experts, as we are famous for that. But if we do engage them, let the experts review these two documents and translate the words into action.

Musa 

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