30 Oct 2022

Tawana Land Board will issue land owners, who have registered, new certificates by mid-November this year.

Speaking at a press conference recently, the landboard chairperson, Mr Emmanuel Dube said a total of 26 642 tribal land owners had registered their land against the target of 76 000.

“The new certificates are an equivalent of a title deed which enables efficiency as one does not have to go through the taxing process of obtaining a title deed from The Registrar of Deeds as was the case in the past,” he said.

However he acknowledged that they were aware that some Batswana had expressed disapproval of the new P3 000 fee charged for transfer of land ownership unlike in the past where it was free.

The new Tribal Land Act, he explained eliminated delays and costs due to the fact that there was no need to develop the land before transfer.

Mr Dube added that they had allocated a total of 6 296 plots since April this year out of the 17 918 target of the financial year.

He said that out of the 6 296, 4 063 were in Maun, 265 in Sehithwa, 15 in Nokaneng , 496 in Gumare, 1 372 Shakawe and 85 in Seronga.

He added that there were 51 plots in Tsodilo and four in Nxau Nxau that were unclaimed because there was no waiting list as all applicants had been allocated.

He implored Batswana interested in acquiring plots in the two villages to apply for land, which he said would be allocated within a month.

He said the land board had submitted 4 102 plots to the Department of Surveys and Mapping for assessment, adding he was hopeful that they would be approved and allocated before end of March next year.

Further, he said 1 747 plots were submitted to private surveyors for assessments also to be allocated before end the current financial year.

He decried challenges that impeded them to allocate land optimally as people did not show up to defend their applications when invited to do so hence rendering allocations sluggish.

“It is within every Motswana’s right who already has a plot to appear before a board when called for land allocation before they could scrap them off the list for owning a plot in tribal land,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Dube said they were in the process of investigating all concessions in the Okavango Delta to determine if they operated legally because some could be operating with expired leases. ENDS