CSOs want Land Bill tabled this month
LandNet—a coalition of civil society organisations advocating land rights in the country—has asked government to table the Land Bill when Parliament meets this month.
The august House is expected to meet for mid-term budget review starting tomorrow.
LandNet executive director Emmanuel Mlaka told members of the coalition meeting in Lilongwe on Friday that the secretariat had reached such a compromise with relevant government ministries—owing to “insufficient time to fine-tune and follow through all procedures in readying the bill.”
However, the changes did not please some members who suspected that this was just government’s ploy to delay acting on the bill.
Mercy Makombe of Women Legal Resources Centre (Wolrec) said: “As land rights advocates, we will be failing in our duties if we sit on our laurels telling ourselves that all is well simply because there are signs that government seems committed to passing the bill. That’s not good enough.
“Government tends to shift goalposts even on issues of national importance. Come June, we may find ourselves to blame should Parliament fail to deliberate on it again and by then, how much customary land will have changed hands in shady deals?”
Total Support for Partners (TSP), Peoples Land Organisation, Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM), Centre for Policy Advocacy (Cepa), Total Land Care and Wolrec were some of the members present at the meeting.
The country still subscribes to the 1965 Land Act which activists say leaves small scale farmers, many of who rely on customary land, less protected from exploitation.
Meanwhile, the coalition has called on government to ban any customary land acquisitions until the Bills are approved. n
