Mootu slams land budget as 'betrayal' of landless Namibians

Landless People's Movement (LPM) MP Utaara Mootu issued a scathing criticism of the land reform budget last week, arguing that “anything less than radical redistribution is simply a continuation of colonial conquest by other means”.Speaking in parliament on Friday during the debate on the agriculture and land reform budget allocation, Mootu said the funding was inadequate given the extent of land inequality, food insecurity and economic exclusion the sector is meant to address.The agriculture ministry received N$2.569 billion, just 3.6% of the national budget.Mootu said this amounts to less than 10% of the N$10.9 billion recommended annually under the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), a treaty to which Namibia is formally committed.She further argued that the land bill "is stuck in limbo with no explanation. There is no strategy for mass redistribution or post-settlement support.”At the same time, she said millions of hectares are still controlled by absentee foreign landlords, while most Namibians remain landless.“That contradiction should be politically unacceptable. This ministry must decide whether it exists to serve the landless rural poor or to protect foreign capital.”Mootu further argued that the state’s refusal to confront the stranglehold of foreign landownership exposes a deep-rooted structural conservatism at its core.She said absentee landlords, shielded by distance and laws, have enriched themselves on stolen land for generations, while native communities remain dispossessed and impoverished.'Settler capitalism'Mootu said a government that continues to shield its land holdings cannot claim to be post-colonial."It is complicit in a form of neo-colonialism that sustains settler capitalism," Mootu said, adding that land reform without expropriation is not reform.“It is betrayal," she added.Mootu also stressed that the deeper issue lies in the absence of a coherent, well-funded plan to drive land reform.“Only N$250 million has been set aside for land acquisition, which reflects a penny-wise, pound-foolish mentality,” Mootu noted.She added that the current allocation is nowhere near sufficient to purchase land on a meaningful scale.“The Ueitele Report estimates the value of land lost during German colonial occupation at N$235 billion, yet the budget response amounts to a symbolic gesture that can barely buy a handful of farms,” she charged.According to Mootu, an even greater concern is the government’s continued emphasis on 100-hectare plots for resettlement, which, she said, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of agricultural viability and economic justice.“In a semi-arid country plagued by droughts and poor soil quality, what is a 100-hectare plot supposed to achieve?"The current approach effectively traps black Namibians in low-productivity, subsistence farming, which is worlds apart from commercial viability and ancestral restoration,” she said.

Mootu slams land budget as 'betrayal' of landless Namibians

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-17

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Mootu slams land budget as 'betrayal' of landless Namibians

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-17

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