(Business in Cameroon) - On August 14, 2020, Ousmanou Biri, the regional president of the association for the cultural development of Cameroonian Mbororos - a community of sheep-breeding nomads well known in Cameroon- sent correspondence to the Minister of Land Affairs  Henri Eyébé Ayissi. In his correspondence, Ousmanou Biri denounced the temporary concession of 100,000 hectares of land in Tignère (department of Faro et Déo) to an investor who wants to use the lands for a livestock project.

(Main photo: a surveyor sits on a construction site in Ningbo, China, on April 26, 2020. Local governments have long offered firms connected to China’s political elite land sale discounts. Photo: Bloomberg)

• Gulzhan Musaeva, an independent financial analyst writes about CIMB’s sustainability commitments. CIMB is Malaysia’s second largest bank and a major leader to regional plantation companies.
• Musaeva argues that CIMB’s reluctance to address the issues associated with forest sector borrowers head-on casts doubt on its sustainability aspirations.
• “This means that, despite massive exposure to forest-risk sectors,” writes Musaeva, “CIMB, among other Malaysian banks, willfully overlooks its impact on SDG 15 ‘Life on Land’ through financing activities.

A RESIDENT of Okahandja submitted a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Commission today calling for an investigation into alleged corrupt land deals implicating councillors and officials at the town.

Johannes Gaseb says he filed his complaint as an individual concerned about alleged corruption with regards to land sales and allocation at the town.

He wants the ACC to investigate land deals that took place between 2014 and 2020.

The residents stated that Nwoko had successfully bought over senior policemen in Delta State and Abuja, who allegedly assisted him in intimidating and arresting those, who opposed his attempt to forcefully acquire additional 90 hectares of land from an area earmarked for all indigenes of the community.

Residents of Idumuje Ugboko community in Delta State have accused former senator, Ned Nwoko, of using the police and Ministry of Justice to dubiously harass, intimidate and lock up elders and sons of the town.

Minister of Lands Kezzie Msukwa says there is a need to clean up the ministry and dismantle corruption syndicates involved in dubious sale of land.

Msukwa said this during a meeting with Vice President Saulos Chilima on the required reforms in the Ministry.

According to Chilima, Msukwa admitted that there are ministry officials who are involved in illegal sale of land.

Malawi Sun Hotel owners Mohammed Irshad Ahmed and Suhaik Irshad Ahmed are facing possible arrest following investigations into allegation of land grab in Blantyre City implicated together with former president Peter Mutharika’s personal bodyguard Norman Chisale.

Ahmed is accused of acquiring land through dubious means in Blantyre allocated to the developer by Ministry of Lands which was never for sale but through Chisale bulldozed to buy the land. Anti Corurption Bureau (ACB) has been investigating the matter and could possibly lead to Ahmed arrest for corruption offences.

(July 31, 2020) – Today, Cambodian plaintiffs representing more than 700 farming families won a landmark appeal allowing them to move forward with their class action against Asia’s largest sugar producer, Mitr Phol. 
The transboundary class action Hoy Mai & Others vs. Mitr Phol Co. Ltd. is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia.  It was filed under Thai laws permitting a class action to be brought by foreign plaintiffs for abuses committed by a Thai company overseas.

Zimbabwe gave Malawi's late former president Bingu wa Mutharika a $124,111 (about R2,1m) “gift” in 2007 through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

This is according to an exposé by Alex Magaisa, a law professor at the University of Kent  on Zimbabwe’s controversial farm mechanisation programme. The programme's $200m debt is being borne by taxpayers.

Following talks on customary land being alienated from land owners, the Land Department is encouraging Customary Land Owners to have their land registered.

This is to ensure these lands are bankable, so that they can use them for further development.

Speaking to th emedia recently, the lands minister said there were policies in place for customary lands registered under the lands department.

He is calling on land owners with portions of land near towns and cities to consult the lands department, and have their land registered.

A review by an anti-fraud taskforce has revealed massive corruption in the DRC involving employees of the UN and international NGOs. Lack of oversight on how aid to the DRC’s vulnerable populations is dispersed has allowed bribery to flourish in one of the world’s most mineral-rich and conflict-prone countries.

Cambodia’s government is unable to resolve the country’s myriad land disputes because many of them involve senior officials, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said in a rare acknowledgement Tuesday, as a rights group urged authorities to take action against all perpetrators of illegal land grabs equally.

Speaking at a conference that included provincial governors and local authorities from across the country, Sar Kheng did not disclose the names of the involved officials but said that at least one of the disputes involved one of Cambodia’s deputy prime ministers.