Alleged land grabbers to account for plots
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Monday July 31, 2023 06:00
The Board has always indicated that it wants to bring perpetrators of the controversial Compensation-In-Kind Policy to account by questioning people who were allegedly abusing the model.
In 2019, the Mogoditshane Sub Land Board announced that when one surrenders a ploughing field, he or she would get six residential plots as compensation. This was coined into a policy called Compensation-In-Kind. While residents ululated at the development, a trend of land grabbing emerged within the system and the policy was suspended and proclaimed as illegal by the Kweneng Land board. The policy provided a loophole for some corrupt Land Board officers to acquire fields through dubious means to get compensation in kind.
There was an influx of people buying the ploughing fields at around P100,000 a hectare only to later sell their six residential plots for around P250,000 each. The questioning of alleged perpetrators started this week and is expected to end next week and by the end of the process, the Kweneng Land Board believes that it will have freed 1,200 plots. Previously, the Kweneng Land Board chairperson Kgang Kgang revealed that involved parties include councillors, judges, lawyers, former Land Board employees, Board members, and high-ranking members in the military.
Kgang also pointed out that the controversy around the policy included a few councillors and politicians who wanted to be favoured at the expense of the law. Amongst the 160 people who have now been called is Mogoditshane sub-council chairperson, Ofentse Mafoko who is accounting for his plots. “I have long appeared before the Land Board. I long bought that 'tshimo' and it is the Land Board that approached us to buy those 'ditshimo'. There is nothing illegal that we have done. We still have the agreement with us and we will approach the court if the Land Board wants to confiscate them. We have not acquired those masimo or ditshimo illegally as some may claim. Our hands are clean on this matter,” Mafoko told Mmegi in an interview. He said it is shocking that the Land Board may want to change the issue after it bought and compensated their fields.
The Kweneng Land Board is racing against time to conclude hearings involving people whose land rights will be affected in the ongoing land fracas at the Mogoditshane Sub Land Board. When contacted for a comment, Kgang said he cannot comment much on the ongoing internal matter. “The model which was previously adopted by Mogoditshane Sub Land Board was illegal as it was not in accordance with provisions of the new Tribal Land Act. We have taken a stance to scrape off the Compensation-In-Kind model hence we called some concerned people for hearing. I cannot dwell much on this matter. Like I said, it is a sensitive issue which is still before the Board,” he said.
Kgang said they are intending to conclude all the hearings soon so that they map the way forward. The Kweneng Land Board chairperson said the Land Board would then be entitled to cancel sub-divisions or any allocation of land acquired fraudulently. He added that during consultations made by the Land Board in most villages in the vicinity of Gaborone, residents had advised that ploughing fields which were taken fraudulently must be returned to the Land Board. In an interview on Thursday, Kgang said the Kweneng Land Board has not lost any case regarding the confiscation of plots that they alleged was obtained illegally. Recently when addressing the media, Kgang said about 38 employees in the Ministry of Lands and Water Affairs were implicated in the land fiasco and they had acquired about 800 plots fraudulently. “Some of them, their cases were before the courts while some have pleaded to return the land,” he had said. Meanwhile, Kgang told the media about yet another trend of illegal certificates at Mogoditshane Sub Land Board. He said they had discovered that some people, out of ignorance, were tricked by conmen into issuing them with fake certificates in exchange for their hard-earned cash and in the process flouted existing processes for one to acquire a plot. “About 600 fake certificates are in the custody of Botswana Police while we continue to receive fake certificates on a daily basis,” he added and therefore cautioned the public to be vigilant and courteous when dealing with processes involving land acquisition.