25 Apr 2023

Tawana Land Board plans to survey 1 802 ploughing fields across the North West District this financial year, following the suspension of applications last year.

The land board chairperson, Mr Emmanuel Dube recently told a media briefing that they had dismally failed to allocate ploughing fields in the just-ended financial year.

“The land board has been keeping a waiting list for ploughing fields since 2015 and the decision to suspend applications was made after realisation that the planning process for ploughing fields takes longer as the Land

Policy provides for ploughing fields to be planned and surveyed before allocation, where feasible,” Mr Dube said.

He said where the ploughing field was not feasible to plan, the board allowed the public to identify in-fills within the ploughing areas, following the planning process for compliance with existing statutes.

He noted that identification of ploughing fields by prospective applicants continued while they were awaiting survey to completion.

“We are committed to complete the survey and allocate ploughing fields this year without fail because we consider agriculture pivotal to improving the lives of Batswana,” he added.

He also revealed that the land board was pinning its hope on the Maun Development Plan to deal with Maun residential plots waiting list, which stood at 45 840.

Mr Dube said the development plan was reportedly undergoing review and reported to be at the final stage of approval, expressing hope that the approval would lead to a demarcation of a large number of plots to significantly deal with Maun village waiting list in the financial year 2023/2024.

However, he said 17 821 from the 45 840 of the applicants had plots elsewhere, 701 were deceased, while others continued to be allocated elsewhere.

He said letters had been written to those with plots to show cause why they could not be deleted from the list.

Asked about inheritance of applications from deceased, Mr Dube pointed out that the law did not allow inheritance of applications, but stated that peculiar cases were considered on their own merits.

On other issues, he noted that they had already kick-started the issuance of Deed of Customary certificate at Nokaneng, adding that they would be launching issuance at Beetsha and Gumare villages next month.

He said their target was to issue 25 047 Secure Land Titles this financial year in all the six sub-land boards.

Mr Dube also appealed to members of the public to register their plots, noting that they had observed that people were now reluctant to register their plots in order for the land board to process their documents for the issuance of Deed of Customary Land Grant.

Registration, he said, could be done at any main or sub-land board in the country.

He noted that Batswana should appreciate the importance and benefits of the secure land tittle as it aimed to reduce costs (survey and conveyancing fees) for citizens and guard against fraud and forgery as it was printed on secure paper with anti-scanner background and other security features. ENDS