Editorial: Land is not a tender

Government’s directive that serviced land must no longer be allocated to private developers who, even after this still construct houses far too expensive for ordinary Namibians, is a welcome move.

Land serviced with public money should not be used to enrich private individuals while ordinary Namibians remain trapped in informal settlements. 

For too long, serviced urban land - arguably the most valuable asset municipalities control - has been treated as a commodity for investors rather than a foundation for citizens seeking shelter. 

The optics are troubling. Public funds pay to service land, only for that land to end up in the hands of private developers who then sell houses for N$1.5 million or more - prices far beyond the reach of the majority of Namibians. In the meantime, informal settlements grow.

The government’s intervention therefore touches on a deeper national frustration. Namibia is not short of land. What the country lacks is a fair and transparent system for distributing it.

But while the principle behind the directive is sound, the implementation raises important questions.

First, if developers are removed from the equation, how exactly will large-scale housing delivery occur? Private developers, for all their flaws, are often the only actors capable of building hundreds of houses at once. Government institutions have historically struggled to match that pace.

Second, municipalities themselves have not always demonstrated the transparency required to manage land allocation fairly. If land is to be distributed directly to individuals, the process must be transparent, publicly monitored and protected from political favouritism.

Otherwise, the system merely replaces one devil with another.

But if the directive simply becomes another statement that fades under bureaucratic resistance, the outcome will be depressingly familiar.

Namibians do not need another land policy debate. They need land. Now.