LAND RENT DEFAULTERS FACE PUBLIC EXPOSURE STARTING NEXT MONTH

THE government yesterday announced that it will next month reveal the names of all land rent defaulters, including government officials.

It also said that it will institute hefty fines to owners of undeveloped land for breaching ownership conditions. Opening a one-day workshop for journalists organised by the Land Tenure Support Programme, Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development Minister, Mr William Lukuvi, said that other stern measures will be taken against the defaulters after the names are made public.

He said that the move is expected not only to increase land rent compliance and boost revenue collection, but also exposing the defaulters to the public especially those who own expensive structures but they don’t pay rent to the government.

“We are going to publish their real names in January, so that the public can be aware of people who own expensive buildings but they evade from paying rent,” Mr Lukuvi insisted. He said that some people have constructed expensive structures, but they have been evading from paying land rent.

“We cannot go like this, we want all people to fulfil their obligations of paying the fee.” The minister, however, cautioned commercial banks and financial institutions to ensure that people who use their farms as collateral to obtain loans spend the money in developing their lands.

He said that in the ongoing exercise of repossessing dormant land, it has been discovered that some owners of abandoned land have been using the resource to obtain loans from the banks and invested the money in other businesses.

He warned that the government will not hesitate to revoke the ownership of undeveloped land which has been used to obtain loans, urging the financial institutions to collaborate with the government to ensure that money is spent for the purpose intended by the loan applicants.

Mr Lukuvi further observed that since the revocation of land ownership is governed by law, his office will implement the exercise to all people regardless of their status. He noted that for this year alone, his ministry has issued a total of 5,016 revocation notices to land owners who have breached the conditions governing the development of their farms or plots.

On implementation of the Land Tenure Support Programme, the minister said the project intends to survey all land in the country and provide title deeds.

He said the programme is currently being implemented in three pilot districts in Morogoro Region including Malinyi, Kilombero and Ulanga and will be extended to other regions across the country. Reacting on the recent incident which occurred in Kilosa District that led to serious injury of a farmer; the minister described the incident as crime.

He said the people who injured the farmer have taken the law into their hands, that is why the defence and security organs have taken immediate actions including arresting all the suspects. Mr Lukuvi noted that in the new land policy there will be sections which will state strict conditions on proper land use including specifying the number of livestock to be kept in an area.

Morogoro Regional Commissioner (RC), Dr Stephen Kebwe, said that 13 people have so far been arrested in connection with the incident. He said LTSP will help in addressing land disputes not only in his region but also other areas across the country.

He said his region has capacity of accommodating 185,000 livestock, but currently it has 1.2 million animals, the situation he said has contributed in fuelling land disputes in his area. The workshop aimed at building capacity to journalists on reporting issues related to laws and regulations governing land administration in the country.