Mozambique: Debate on Land Policy extended for another month – AIM report

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Mozambique: Debate on Land Policy extended for another month – AIM report

12:18 CAT | 25 Mar 2022

Photo: Ministério da Terra e Ambiente

The Mozambican government has extended the debate on the new National Land Policy (PNT) by a further 30 days, reports Thursday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”.

The Minister of Land and Environment, Ivete Maibaze, announced the decision on Wednesday at the opening in Maputo of a two day National Land Meeting, held under the motto “For equitable access, secure tenure, and sustainable use of the land”.

The Minister said the government wants to obtain contributions that will improve the policy document and help produce a legal framework that will reflect the interests of all Mozambicans.

The call for revising Mozambique’s land legislation came from President Filipe Nyusi in 2017, at an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the current Land Law.

In July 2020, in the southern city of Matola, Nyusi presented the general guidelines for the new National Land Policy. A period of 18 months was given for receiving contributions to the policy document, but the period was then extended to April 2022.

The government has now agreed to a further 30 day extension. Maibaze said this was because Mozambique has been going through “an atypical period” because of the restrictions introduced to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, and because of extreme climatic events, such as the recent cyclones.

Maibaze called on the members of the Commission to Revise Land Policy to strive for transparency in drawing up the new draft land policy.

She recalled that, in 2017, at a consultative forum on land issues, Nyusi had stressed that the basic premises behind drawing up the new policy should be that the Mozambican state must remain the sole owner of the land and of all natural resources, that all Mozambicans have a right to access to land, and that rights acquired by households and by local communities must always be protected.

Outside of these basic premises, all land questions are up for debate, the Minister stressed.

Maibaze said that, among the main concerns are the hoarding of land, speculation, corruption and sale of land. Although the Constitution and the Land Law make it clear that the sale of land is forbidden, reports of illicit land purchases continue to trickle in from across the country.

Maibaze also pointed to the problem of land lying unused, when people acquire a land title (DUAT) but then do nothing with the land, presumably in the hope that they will later be able to sell the land rights.

Source: AIM