Laws should help resolve land disputes

Dar es Salaam. The year 1999 was a revolutionary year of its kind as the country witnessed enormous changes in land management since independence.

Before the enactment of pieces of legislation pertaining to land management, the longest living legislation – the Land Ordinance, 1923 put the whole land of the country under the powers of the president as the sole trustee of all the land in the country.

Legal land occupancy and utilisation was under the Land Ordinance. The incoming of two land laws - the Land Act, 1999 and the Village Land Act, 1999 changed altogether land management and occupancy into two regimes - the commissioner in the ministry responsible for general land affairs and village governments - precisely village councils responsible for the management of village lands

The establishment of land laws of 1999 was the partial implementation of a report of the Presidential Commission for Enquiry into land issues formed in 1991 under the chairmanship of Prof Issa Shivji.

The intention of legislating new land laws for land was necessitated by many factors, but mainly the outcry of one person or the ministry holding all powers and thus making the right of occupancy by ordinary citizens to be a cumbersome task.

In principle, land is everything for human beings and without it subsistence becomes almost impossible.

Thus, the national land policy of 1995 and the two pieces of legislation that followed in 1999 were meant to ease the management of land by giving local communities power to manage their land under customary norms for common socioeconomic development.

Contrary to what the land laws were intended to solve, the situation is becoming even worse today than before the introduction of new land laws.

Every passing day we witness land disputes almost in every corner of this country. There are land disputes between peasants and pastoralists, investors and local inhabitants and so on.

The law used to administer land in rural areas is the Village Land Act, 1999. Precisely speaking, this law by itself is not bad. The real problem is the village management given the mandate by the law to administer land that falls into their jurisdiction.

Section 8 of the Village Land Act, 1999, empowers the Village Council to administer the land of each particular village. The village council is the village government, which comprises 25 members.

Although the law provides for procedural steps on how the village council can equitably manage land, under normal circumstances things do not happen that way.

There are two basic problems associated with the village council in administering village land. First, is the issue of understanding the law itself and second, the problem of corruption. While ignorance of the law might not be that much serious, the problem of corruption is the one that causes mismanagement of village land.

Given this era of free market economy, there are so many honest and dishonest people, who go to villages and pose themselves as investors looking for chunks of land for investment purposes.

They thus grab these chunks of land in rural areas by bribing village councils and ending up in acquiring land illegally.

Village council members have become experts in forging illegal agreements with people, who need land for different purposes without following proper procedures the Village Land Act, 1999 and its rules require.

The government at ministerial level has translated the Village Land Act into Kiswahili to enable many Tanzanians to know the essence of the law, but still that has not been of any help to resolve problems related to land management.

If right measures are not seriously taken to address the issues pertaining to corruption in land, very soon this country will fall into more serious problems of land grabbing and leave many people landless. The government must reconsider the formation of working village councils, when it comes to the management of village land.

The village council with legal powers it has through corrupt hands of its members can dispose land without the approval of the village as required by the law, thus leaving many villagers without land. In the past, we used to hear land problems prevailing in Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Bukoba, but today we hear and see people taking the law into their own hands to defend their land rights.

To a great extent and in many places the village councils are not participatory organs as the law requires them to be. Instead of equitably managing village land according to the law, they have assumed the role of selling village land to people in need of land if they are promised bribes.

The village Land Act, 1999 is very clear on how the village council is supposed to conduct its business. One of the necessary steps for the village council is to involve all villagers through the village assembly, when a need for giving someone land arises.

The government at district level also has a legal role to play in supervising village land councils instead of being mere spectators.

The author is a journalist/lawyer based in Dar es Salaam. He can reached via [email protected], 0756 440 175