Sigh of relief in land disputes
DODOMA: MINISTER for Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development, Mr Jerry Silaa on Friday said his ministry has administratively resolved a total of 7,885 land disputes from July 2024 to May, this year, a move that marks a significant achievement towards ending land related conflicts in the country.
The settled land rows are from a total of 11,860 disputes, which were recorded by the government during the said period.
Tabling the budget for the 2024/2025 fiscal year, Mr Silaa said the ministry had planned to resolve 6,550 disputes during the year 2023/24 but has managed to resolve 7,885, which is an increase of 1335 disputes. The Minister presented 171.37bn/- budget for his docket for the 2024/25 financial year.
He said 70.6bn/- has been allocated for development budget and 86.79bn/- for recurrent while the remaining 12.17bn/- for Planning Commission.
Minister Silaa informed the National Assembly that the government has continued addressing various land disputes administratively through running land clinics in regions and local governments, desks for handling complaints, teams and experts’ special committees and visits of ministry’s leaders.
He said the resolved disputes are mainly related to compensations, providing alternative lands, rectification of boundaries for villages, plots or farms and provision of education.
The land clinic is the ministry’s programme aimed at ensuring that all citizens seeking services or face challenges about land are offered services at a speedy pace and effectively in their areas. During the period from July, 2023 to May, 2024, the ‘Ardhi Clinics’ were conducted in the regions and at local government level.
“Land clinics have shown successes as many citizens turned up and expressed their concerns freely and their issues were resolved,” Mr Silaa said.
ALSO READ: State commits to resolve land disputes in Mwanza
Through these clinics, by May 15, 2024, a total of 35,963 citizens in 22 regions were served, whereby 4,565 complaints were settled out of 7,444 complaints. The remaining 2,879 complaints are still being handled.
The clinics also managed to issue 17,553 title deeds to land owners and 13,289 new applications were received. The ministry collected a total of 3.03bn/- as charges for legal services.
The Minister highlighted some of the major factors for land conflicts as compensation claims, land double allocations, invasion of public places and privately owned lands, forgery, inheritance of properties and others.
“The ministry will continue collaborating with other government institutions in taking measures against individuals who use forged documents to own land or those invading lands by sending them to court and bringing back those lands to right owners,” Mr Silaa vowed.
Speaking about the next 2024/25 financial year, he said the ministry will keep on addressing the complaints and land disputes through the Integrated Land Management Information System (ILMIS) which kicks off in July, 2024.
He outlined five key priorities aimed at continuing to strengthen coordination and supervision of development of the land sector.
According to Mr Silaa, the 2024/2025 financial year ministry’s priority are speeding up land planning, survey and issuing of land title deeds in both urban and rural areas, strengthening of systems for land disputes settlement, strengthening of Information and Communication Technology systems (ICT) for records management, ensuring availability of better houses for the growth of the land sector and social-economic development as well as strengthening international borders.
The ministry has also continued coordinating formalisation of unplanned settlements in collaboration with communities, civil society organisations and the private sector. In the year 2023/24, the ministry planned to formalise 300,000 settlements.
By May this year, a total of 237,424 informal settlements were legalised. Moreover, in the coming fiscal year, the government plans to formalise 500,000 informal settlements.
The Parliamentary committee on Land, Natural Resources and Tourism, advised the government to ensure all public institutions that owe the National Housing Corporation (NHC) to pay the debt, which amounts to 2.15bn/-. The committee vice chairperson, Najma Giga, said the ministry also faces shortage of staff, including building inspectors, a situation which contributes to increasing unplanned settlements.
ALSO READ: Minister Pinda seeks resolve on land disputes in Dodoma
“The committee advises the government to increase the number of staff for the land sector in order to control unplanned settlements and effectively manage land in the country,” Ms Giga said.
The committee also wanted the government to allocate more funds for the National Planning Commission and better land management purposely to address land conflicts and development of cities.
