Namibia may soon take land by force

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The Namibian government has announced that it is in talks with the attorney general over the introduction of harsh laws on the expropriation of land after the "willing buyer, willing seller" policy proved "ineffective".

The Namibian reported that Land Reform Minister Utoni Nujoma had said he was holding ongoing meetings with the attorney general regarding the issue.

The announcement followed concerns raised by farmers over outdated legislation that does little to benefit them.

Statistics released by Farmer's Weekly showed that, as of last year, only 27% of the total agricultural land in Namibia had been successfully redistributed to those who were previously disadvantaged; 43% of the total agricultural land had been allocated for redistribution and another 16%, or 5.6 million hectares, had yet to be successfully redistributed.

Speaking during a meeting of the Namibia National Farmer's Union and President Hage Geingob, Nujoma disclosed that the government was considering amending the Communal Land Reform Act of 2000 and the Commercial Land Reform Act of 2005.

Geingob urged farmers to work with the government to address issues affecting them.

News24 - http://www.news24.com.ng/World/News/namibia-may-soon-take-land-by-force-report-20160219
 
Well ... hope they decouple from the ZAR before they go full Zimbabwe at least, wouldn't want any accidental impact by association, we'll wait for the EFF to bring the Zim to us thanks very much ... :whistle:
 
Why is there such a fascination with farm redistribution?

In South Africa, the redistribution process is mostly pointless, as the end user doesn't want the land, they want money.
Majority of cases so far..

Or, its a scam for government related entities to pick up land on the cheap. See Gupta, and most of the ANC executive for examples.
Normal property transfers at market prices would allow a genuine black farmer to pick up a farm.

Otherwise, its just a scam to steal peoples money and property a la Zim.
 
lsheed_cn said:
Why is there such a fascination with farm redistribution?
Click to expand...

I honestly think it is an age old cultural type of thinking where wealth was measured by how much land you own, or how many cattle you have. They surely want the money, but seemingly don't realize the only reason the land is worth money is because you can use it to produce things that have value, getting the money takes work, but nobody wants to work :(
 
That is a nice country, great people, but having been there a number of times lately - there's a subtle undercurrent of discontent.
Same as here, just not as much in public, because they are more polite. And the cops hammer down on any protests with massive force.
 
When my grandmother immigrated from Prussia with her father and two brothers to Deutsch Suedwestafrika they bought two pieces of land close to Gobabis from the German government. There were no people living on the land and there was no trace of any ever having lived there. They had to erect a fence around the land within a year or the German government would take the land back. They farmed on both pieces of land, the one they developed and put of the farm house, sheds and so on, the other one was only divided into camps. About 4 years back the farm with only the camps was put on the market and the government came and had a look "willing buyer, willing seller" and they were not interested in it as of no infrastructure. Go figure!!! So the farm was split up and each neighbour bought some and incorporated it into their farm.
 
dillinger said:
When my grandmother immigrated from Prussia with her father and two brothers to Deutsch Suedwestafrika they bought two pieces of land close to Gobabis from the German government. There were no people living on the land and there was no trace of any ever having lived there. They had to erect a fence around the land within a year or the German government would take the land back. They farmed on both pieces of land, the one they developed and put of the farm house, sheds and so on, the other one was only divided into camps. About 4 years back the farm with only the camps was put on the market and the government came and had a look "willing buyer, willing seller" and they were not interested in it as of no infrastructure. Go figure!!! So the farm was split up and each neighbour bought some and incorporated it into their farm.
Click to expand...

That's the thing - die fokol groei skouer hoog daar. Namibia is slightly larger than Texas, with less people than Pretoria. Most of the land there is not even fit for farming with goats. The only reason they would appropriate any land there is for what is under it. Specifically what their Chinese partners think is under it.

FYI - We're twice as large. With the population of California.
 
This is not as sensationalist as it would first appear, the government met with local farmers to help i prove Namibia's capacity to produce...

This is more about a lot of foreigners owning vast tracts of land and not doing anything with this land.....

Even local afrikaans farmers complain about these German and Austrian type lamd owners who own these huge farms, but do not even live in the country.....only returning every couple of years or so to hunt..... Nobody lives on most of these properties.....

We discussed this in the office yesterday..... This is not a Zim style land grab.....we need to make as much of our empty land productive..
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
I honestly think it is an age old cultural type of thinking where wealth was measured by how much land you own, or how many cattle you have. They surely want the money, but seemingly don't realize the only reason the land is worth money is because you can use it to produce things that have value, getting the money takes work, but nobody wants to work :(
Click to expand...

Never understood all the 'demand land' thats gone on for years. Only one person owns land if you want to go the cultural road. Take Swaziland and Lesotho. One person owns all the land. There is only one wealthy person. The chief. The plebs get to stay on it if they pay there dues and don't piss him off. Which is basically what Malema wants to do here if he gets power, and which is why nothing is ever built or maintained under that system. Who the **** in their right mind is going to develop and invest on a piece of land that only has a 25 year lease and then its taken from you because the chief prefers it to his own, or his 20th wife likes it etc.
 
Take land away from land ownership and you create instant poverty. Bobby's country is a perfect example.
What is fascinating is that the plebs believe it will work.
 
Mortymoose said:
You have to create "new" wealth, bo point in taking the current wealth and moving it to another person..
Click to expand...

While I agree with you, we all know that's not how it works in Africa. The situation in countries to the north of SA and Namibia (ZimBOBwe being a prime example) demonstrated that the post-colonial country rulers were quite happy to "land grab" with little or no compensation to the farmers that had introduced modern & efficient farming practices in lands which were previously used by the natives to grow sub-standard quality crops.

I lived for many years in both Northern & Southern Rhodesia, and was still there post-independence where I saw first hand what devastation was caused to formerly fertile & well managed farmland due to poor farming methods.

The simple, but proven, concept of contour ploughing was scoffed at by those post-colonial "new" landowners ... it seemed to them to be much easier to plough up, and down, the hills, instead of along the contour lines. And so of course when it rained, all seed that was planted washed away, along with the fertile soil, in the rivulets flowing downhill.

I think it is only Zambia and perhaps a couple of other post-independent lands that finally, but quietly, started encouraging competent farmers to return to Zambia, and even offer them land to farm on a long-lease basis.
 
Mortymoose said:
This is not as sensationalist as it would first appear, the government met with local farmers to help i prove Namibia's capacity to produce...

This is more about a lot of foreigners owning vast tracts of land and not doing anything with this land.....

Even local afrikaans farmers complain about these German and Austrian type lamd owners who own these huge farms, but do not even live in the country.....only returning every couple of years or so to hunt..... Nobody lives on most of these properties.....

We discussed this in the office yesterday..... This is not a Zim style land grab.....we need to make as much of our empty land productive..
Click to expand...


Ok MortyM., then the government should not be talking about land grabs, which is effectively what expropriation means.

They should be introducing policies to disallow foreign land ownership from now on (this is common to a lot of countries, so not a wholesale killer of foreign investment). That will mean gradual disinvestment by foreign nationals, and bring the land back into the countries usage.

Another method which isn't as damaging is to increase taxes on un-farmed land. This encourages farming, and discourages holding onto land for pure hunting purposes.

Thoughts?
 
Its always funny how the country will take the foreigners money when he purchase the land.
Now it is up to the owner what he wants to do with land(and I get the problem that they can use the land for more productive stuff) but it is still the owners land he bought legally.

It is the same here, we buy pieces of land for investments, to either sell in a couple of years or go live on it when retire.
But until that time nothing happens on that land, so what gives you the right to want to take it away from me?
 
Namibia is one of the sparsest populated countries in Africa. There is more than enough land for everyone ...
 
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