21 Nov 2017

Chairperson of Ngwato Land Board, Mr David Modisagape, has advised residents of Paje to register their land through the LAPCAS as failure may result in repossession of their land.

Mr Modisagape said this at a consultative kgotla meeting that was organised by Ngwato Land Board recently.

Mr Modisagape indicated that during the July/August session, Parliament had passed a re-enactment of the Tribal Land Act of 1968 with the intention to facilitate socio-economic development of the country.

“The amendment requires those who have not registered to register their grants within six months of the commencement of the act. 

Those who have not registered their land through LAPCAS, do so without delay and avoid issues of having your land being repossessed,” he said.

He said the act was necessitated by the fact that Botswana had experienced economic growth, which called for modernisation of land related laws such as the Tribal Land Act to address emerging issues and facilitate the ease of doing business.

“The challenges which the amendments sought to address includes, allocation of un-surveyed plots leading to double allocations and encroachment disputes by the grantees and unregistered customary grants denying citizens economic benefits especially when they needed to use their property as security,” he said.

He said other challenges included lengthy registration of land titles, which had worried many Batswana, undocumented allocations and unsecure titles, which were easy to manipulate, and loss of land rights to non-citizens, especially in areas closer to urban areas.

“The amendment is intended to address these challenges, in particular to provide registration of the customary tribal land including customary grants, and enhance capacity of land boards to improve efficiency,” he said.

He noted that the re-enactment retained land boards along the current tribal territories and tribal areas for the administration of land for the benefit of the citizens and for the purpose of promoting economic and social development of all the people.

“The re-enactment retains the current functions of land loards. This will also enhance the capacity of the land boards to operate more efficiently,” he said.

Further, he noted that the amendment also required that all customary land rights including those allocated by dikgosi before the establishment of land boards in 1968 be directly registered by the Registrar of Deeds and forbids occupation of land without issuance of registered title.

“This will also enhance the value of tribal land since all customary court land grants will be issued with new secure land titles. It will no longer be necessary to change to common law in order to register land and be issued with a title deed,” he said.

Mr Modisagape also indicated that the amendment required those who had not registered their grants within six months of commencement of the act, adding that, where one was required to vacate land for public purpose, consideration would be made on the market value of the property and the loss of rentals from the time that the land was occupied by the state.

He further noted that the amendment also prohibited direct customary land grant to non-citizens by land boards, but pointed out that citizens may transfer land provided that they first advertised for a period of 30 days to give citizens the option to buy the plot.

“The amendment empowers the land board to cancel grants where without sufficient excuse, the land has not been cultivated, used or developed to the requirements of the land board for such period as may be prescribed in respect of that land,” he said.

Mr Modisagape noted that, acquiring any tribal land without having an appropriate lease or a registered certificate issued was an offence.

“Dividing tribal land without prior approval of the land board that allocated the land, changing land use without prior approval of the land board and making any statement which the makers know to be untrue are some of the offences which are punishable to a fine of P20 000. ENDS