Govt moves to address unequitable land distribution: To digitalize land info by Dec. 2022
The Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Sam Dalitso Kawale, has disclosed government plans to digitize land information as a measure to achieve equitable land distribution in Malawi.
The exercise will also expose how some greedy individuals, particularly Malawians of other origins, used their accumulated wealth and money to push indigenous Malawians to the corners through acquisition of multiple plots both in cities and major towns across the country.
Kawale, who addressed journalists alongside the Minister of Information and Digitalization during the Government Faces The Press in Lilongwe on Monday, said the government has brought six categories of land laws, which are aimed at protecting everyone, including the underprivileged citizens to own land in the country.
“Everything will be digitalized by December 2022. And I can’t wait for 2023 because then we will not have problems with people acquiring huge pieces of land, which they are failing to develop,” he said.
Among others, the laws pronounce penalties on people applying for freehold land, but fail to develop within two years after acquisition.
Kawale says the law empowers the government (the ministry) to re-enter (repossess) undeveloped land and offer it to someone else with resources to develop.
On the Land Survey Amendment Bill, the minister said this law will address problems of duplicity in land survey while, at the same time, accommodate the use of new technologies in land surveys.
Speaking earlier, Chief Government Spokesperson and Minister of Information and Digitalization, Gospel Kazako, distanced the Tonse Alliance administration from reports of abuse of resources at the Loans Board.
Kazako stated that the funds were stolen during the erstwhile governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
“This happened between 2018 and 2019, way before the Tonse Alliance came into power. It’s unfortunate that some people are linking it to this administration. The truth of the matter is that it is this administration that has exposed this theft of public resources that would have benefitted so many needy students,” said the minister.
