The Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) has said that it accepted that government expropriation of farms must take place.
Nineteen owners were recently served with government notices advising them that their land had been identified for expropriation and they should “come and negotiate the sale”, said Jan de Wet, president of the NAU.
During a recent interview in the capital, Windhoek, De Wet told IRIN he remained “positive that we will reach consensus on how to manage land reform in Namibia”, and sketched the background to land reform.
– In 1991, just after independence, a conference on land reform was held at which all stakeholders were present. The conference reached consensus on a number of issues. The very important thing was that the Bushmen were the first inhabitants of Namibia, and if you start land claims based on ancestral land you will never reach the end of the road. It was thus decided that there would be no claims on ancestral land, he explained.
The conference decided, however, that distribution was clearly unequal, and “must be addressed by government acquiring land in commercial farm areas for redistribution to disadvantaged communities”.
A number of criteria were agreed for identifying land that government could acquire: under-utilised land must be developed; farmers with excessive land must offer it to government on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis; and land belonging to foreigners. It was also decided that if not enough land was offered for sale to government, expropriation can be used as a method by government to obtain land in those three categories, De Wet noted.
Namibias constitution provides for the expropriation of land in the public interest, as long as just compensation is paid.
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
