Land Boards set new allocation record
Fifty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-seven (52 277) plots have been allocated in tribal land for the period 1st April 2022 to 28th February 2023, Minister of Lands and Water Affairs Kefentse Mzwinila has announced.
In an update to the nation on the state of affairs of his ministry, Mzwinila is over the moon because this is a new record set by land boards as they have never allocated this number of plots in a year.
In the past the number of plots that used to be allocated in the country per annum ranged around eight thousand six hundred and thirty plots (8630) in the last two decades.
He said that the latest allocation of land by land boards is six times higher than what they used to allocate. Mzwinila said that the ministry is aggressively pursuing more plot allocations between now and the end of the financial year.
“There is an additional sixty thousand (6000) plots that are being surveyed at this very moment,” Mzwinila said. However, the minister is worried at the rate at which Batswana are selling plots that they have been allocated.
He said this creates more work for the officials at the land boards which disrupts their current main objective of allocating plots to Batswana.
Mzwinila implored Batswana to reduce the transfers of land as soon as they are given land. He said the actions of the people who sell their plots soon after they are given land defeat the whole purpose of giving land to locals.
The minister said the problematic thing about this is that the transfer of land is going to non-citizens, indicating that land boards do not allocate land to noncitizens.
“In the past the land board has tried to stop a transfer of a developed plot from a Motswana to a foreigner but the land board lost the case at court,” Mzwinila cited this example as one of the measures they tried to put in place to deter people from transferring land allocated to them.