Mozambique: Nyusi launches consultation on land policy – AIM report

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Mozambique: Nyusi launches consultation on land policy – AIM report

7:57 CAT | 19 Jul 2020

President Nyusi, on Thursday (July 16) launched the public consultations about revising Mozambique’s National Land Policy, [ Photo: Presidency of the Republic of Mozambique]

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi warned on Thursday that the question of access to land must not become a curse for Mozambican households.

Speaking in the southern city of Matola at a ceremony to launch a series of public consultations about revising Mozambique’s National Land Policy, Nyusi stressed “we don’t want a scenario in which households and local communities lose their land because the authorities grant it to new occupants, whether they be private or public investors”.

When land is allocated to investors, he added, “this should be a blessing and never a curse for the households involved”. Investments, whether by local or foreign businesses, were welcome “but should never mean losses for the local communities”.

Nyusi said the government will not exclude anyone from the right to use land. On the contrary, it should implement mechanisms that make it easier for Mozambicans to enjoy land rights.

Nyusiland1.pres_ — *[ Photo: Presidency of the Republic of Mozambique]*

The three main guidelines concerning land tenure have already been established, he declared. First, the Mozambican state owns all the land and natural resources of the country. Second, the state must ensure that Mozambicans have access to land, and third, the rights acquired by households and communities must always be protected.

These were the three foundations of debates about land, and could not be altered, “but everything else can be shaken up”, said Nyusi.

He believed that Mozambicans want to live in a legal framework that halts hoarding and speculation in land, and corruption, which reduces the risk of land disputes, which prevents land from lying unused, and which protects the right of communities, and particularly the rights of rural women and young people.

During the current consultation, he hoped that individuals, households, communities, companies, civic, religious and academic organisations would all make their voices heard. He wanted contributions gathered from all of them about the alterations they wanted to see, so that better use can be made of the country’s land. New legislation proposed should meet the concerns of citizens, individually, or as groups, including companies.

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Nyusi added that the debates over the new land policy and subsequent legislation “should bear in mind that the law in force is Mozambican, and is not an imported vision”.

Source: AIM