News on Land

The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction has set 2021 as the deadline to complete land registration nationwide, including indigenous land registration, with 74% of total land parcels already registered.

Around 5.2 million land parcels were registered nationwide, accounting for 74% of the total 7 million land parcels by April 2019, according to a press statement from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction dated 02 May.

From forced displacement to conflict over resources, the coronavirus pandemic has created a “perfect storm” for land rights abuses - and the situation is likely to worsen, researchers and activists warned on Thursday.

The migration of men to rural areas due to lockdowns and job losses has increased competition over land, with a disproportionate impact on woman, said organisers of a land rights webinar.

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 program was announced by Lae MP and Minister for Lands and Physical Planning John Rosso to assist people in Lae with land title issues. Mr Rosso said the program is to help those who have been residing on state land and other existing land for years without titles. “This is to give land title to people who are sitting on the existing land without attaining the land title. We will start the program at Tenth City where those in the area will be sorted out,” Mr Rosso said.

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.

A series of land complaints were filed with the Mondulkiri Provincial Court on Monday by residents of Lames and Pou Lu villages who claim two community leaders stole land to sell.

The four indigenous plaintiffs also filed a complaint against an environment official for not preventing the offences and against a couple – Kek Than and his wife Oeu – for land grabbing offences.

he successful integration of a number of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been driven by cooperation with large-scale miners (LSMs), refiners, traders and the embedding of traceability measures, says natural resource transformation nongovernmental and nonprofit organisation IMPACT.

The Lands Department is looking at providing affordable housing for public servants as well as taxpayers.

Minister John Rosso made their intention known during a recent press brieng in Port Moresby.

Creating aordable housing in PNG’s urban centres is a complicated and daunting task considering the large number of squatters on State land, land ownership issues, the connection of utilities and reticulation on the land itself.

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.

Main photo: land to be taken for the Vientiane Expressway in Laos is shown in a 2020 photo (RFA)

Residents of the Lao capital Vientiane are resisting seizure of their land by a Lao-China joint venture building an expressway, saying they had been promised earlier their land would not be taken, and calling offers of compensation unacceptably low, Lao sources say.

Koh Kong provincial authorities said they would not approve the sale and purchase of land in protected areas without proper paperwork.

They vowed to weed out land corruption following a July 3 Facebook post by Prime Minister Hun Sen calling for the return of land to locals living in protected areas.

In an announcement on Tuesday, officials said land transactions are taking place in protected areas around villages and communes, especially in Botum Sakor, Kiri Sakor and Thma Bang districts.