Only 0.2% Secure Land Titles issued
Innocent Selatlhwa | Tuesday March 14, 2023 06:00
Responding to a question in Parliament this week, the minister said out of the 493,004 people who registered their plots, only 1,953 people have been issued with SLTs as of February, and this is reflective of the curtailment of stopping the continuation of the tender by the Tribunal. A total of 836,906 SLTs are to be issued.
The introduction of the SLT followed the commencement of the re-enacted Tribal Land Act of 2018, and the Deeds Registry (Amendment) Act of 2017. The process requires plot holders to register their land rights with the Registrar of Deeds through the Land Boards. The individual land parcels’ registration must be preceded by the registration of the parent plot in the name of the concerned Land Board with the Registrar of Deeds. This involves the survey and registration of Cadastral Areas which are village boundaries.
To date, the minister said 454 village boundaries have been registered out of the 532 which exist. This is followed by the registration of Certificate of Registered Titles (CRT) which can be loosely defined as a boundary of a ward/block of plots commonly known as an Outside Figure. He said so far, 290 CRTs out of 1,433 have been registered.
The minister said the next stage is the registration of General Plans (GP), which details each ward in terms of individual plots and their land uses. He said to accelerate the registration of SLTs, the ministry floated a tender for the survey and examination of the survey diagrams in August 2022.
“The tender consisted of three parts, Part A; the Cadastral Survey, which consisted of the survey of the General Plans consisting of plots. It was awarded to 27 Companies. Part B consisted of the examination of the survey records and which has been awarded to six Batswana companies, and Part C being the survey of the Outside Figures awarded to 13 Batswana companies. "Mr Speaker, in the past in tribal areas the survey did not follow the prescribed requirements for SLT, as the General Plans were in some cases surveyed without the outside figures. However, the award of the Cadastral Survey (Part A) of the tender was challenged by some of the bidders and led to the Procurement Tribunal setting aside Part A of the tender.
"Thus, we were unable to proceed with the issuance of the Secure Land Title as the outsourcing of the work that was required was suspended by the Procurement Tribunal and this resulted in the delay of the exercise. Part B of the tender depends on the output of Part A and subsequently Part C,” he said.
The minister said the tender is expected to yield an additional 63,316 plots which should be ready for allocation and issuance of Secure Land Titles. According to the schedule, the minister said this is supposed to happen by March of 2023. “This has affected our delivery timelines of the Secure Land Title as we had to restart the whole process. This exercise of restarting the process began on March 6, and it is expected to be completed by April 5. Therefore, the plots should be ready in the first quarter of the financial year (2023) for issuance of the Secure Land Title,” he said.
Mzwinila further said the ministry intends to complete the registration exercise of the existing land rights by the end of the Financial Year 2023–2024. He said the expected number of land parcels to be registered for SLT is 836,906. He said so far, the ministry has registered approximately 58.9% of the total number since April 2022. He said it must be noted that the completion of the registration exercise is very much dependent on the plot owners' forthcoming to register their plots and update their records at the Land Boards.
Sefhare-Ramokgonami legislator, Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang had asked the minister to update the house on the progress concerning the introduction of Secure Land Titles. He wanted the minister to give an update on how many people registered their plots since the exercise began; how many of those who have registered have been issued with Secure Land Titles; and if the ministry has set targets to complete the registration exercise.