…as AR petition is tabled in Parliament
Andrew Kathindi
Minister of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, Calle Schlettwein says foreign land ownership in Namibia should not be allowed, but can only be enforced with new regulations.
Schlettwein said currently his ministry was being guided by the resolutions of the second land conference, held in 2018, where some of the pertinent topics discussed included resettlement policy and criteria, land allocation and administration and the expropriation of agriculture land.
“But we must distinguish between different categories of land. Our reading is that the prohibition is primarily for agricultural land. Industrial development is also on land, if we prohibit that completely – we must still see if that was the intention of the land conference resolution – our current interpretation is that it was more aimed at agricultural land. We put that in the bill,” he told Windhoek Observer.
The minister said that following the land conference and its resulting resolutions, the ministry has been in the process of reworking the Land Act to accommodate some of those resolutions. These amendments are planned to be tabled later this year.
Schlettwein, however, argued that foreign ownership of land should be permitted under certain dispensations.
“I am of the opinion that some form of ownership by foreigners in terms of shares, needs to be accommodated. It would be very complicated if you prohibit an investor that comes on an equity basis into a venture here in Namibia, and you exclude a possibility that the venture may own shares through which they own a piece of land. It will make our investment climate very uncompetitive if this is not allowed. I think we should accommodate these special circumstances,” he said.
He reiterated his argument that the aim of the prohibition of land ownership is more relevant to agricultural land and large stretches of land and not so much complicated issues in industrial development.
“But of course, we must be careful not to have whole towns owned by foreigners. We must be very sensitive to that. We have to be careful about that and we will try and put these mitigating factors into the bill prevent it.”
This comes after a petition by the Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement, which among other things demanded a total prohibition on foreign nationals owning Namibian land. The petition was submitted to the Speaker of Parliament, Peter Katjavivi last year. It was tabled this week in the National Assembly.
This debate follows reports of the sale of Erindi private game reserve to Mexican billionaire Alberto Baillères, who is believed to not have partnered with any Namibian citizens in the venture.
Another billionaire, Russian national Rashid Sardarov, owns four farms that he combined into the Marula Game Ranch close to Dordabis.
Katjavivi tabled the petition and moved that it be referred to the relevant parliamentary committees for investigation and report back to the assembly.
The petition states: “The petition calls for the urgent passing of the legislation to provide for the regulation of the foreign ownership of land and (2) to fulfill the directives and objectives of Article 16 (1) of the Namibian constitution (3) and to regulate the right to acquire property by persons who are not Namibian citizens (4) and to reaffirm and give our control to and ownership to the land in Namibia to the people of Namibia (5) to provide for incidental matters.”
