Land Bills touted to address concerns
Minister of Lands Samuel Kawale says the amendment of six land-related Bills which have been in force for about five years is a response to public concerns ignored when the laws were enacted.
Last week, Parliament approved five Bills, namely land Survey Act (Amendment) Bill, Registered Land Act (Amendment) Bill, Land Acquisition and Compensations Act (Amendment) Bill, Physical Planning Act (Amendment) and Customary Land Act (Amendment) Bill. The move brought the total number of Bills passed to six after the Land Act (Amendment) Bill was passed on Friday.
After a protracted process which started in 1998, Parliament in 2016 passed 10 Land-related laws to improve the administration of land management, but the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) led by President Lazarus Chakwera, who was leader of opposition in Parliament at the time, were against some of the provisions.
In October 2020, after winning the court-sanctioned fresh presidential election on June 23 2020, Chakwera directed that some of the land-related laws be reviewed to accommodate popular concerns.
Taking turns to table the amendment Bills in the House, both Kawale and his deputy Deus Gumba Banda indicated that the 2016 process ignored some pertinent concerns and the amendments are meant to address that.
He said: “When the land laws were enacted in 2016 there was a lot of discontent in the way the laws were formulated by various stakeholders including people living in rural areas, farming communities, traditional leaders, academia, professional bodies and civil society organisations.”
Kawale said the Bills were rushed in tabling and had last minute changes ending up with drafting errors and disjointed provisions that “rendered certain parts of laws not speaking to each other and over time voices of discontent became even louder”.
On whether the amendments were another set of regime-based laws that would be changed in future, Kawale said the changes are based on popular demand.
Among the crucial provisions in the amendments are a section that allows foreigners to acquire land for only investment purposes as determined by the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre.
This, Kawale said is responding to concerns that foreigners were taking away land from locals largely due to their better financial positions.
