Lands ministry interrogates 'just compensation'

The lands ministry has roped in Attorney-General Albert Kawana to obtain a legal opinion on various issues emanating from the country's second national land conference, including the expropriation of land with just compensation.

The finalised resolutions of the conference, which took place in October last year, have also been submitted to cabinet for approval, lands ministry spokesperson Chrispin Matongela confirmed yesterday.

Constitutional expert Nico Horn said it is a positive development and pointed out that the issue of just compensation versus market value remains thorny.

According to him, farmers are concerned that the value of their land, without improvements, will be used when calculating just compensation.

“What they are saying is that that is more a taxable issue - an evaluation issue - which does not include improvements or the kind of farming that you do,” he said.





Horn said it would be important for government to get a group of experts on board to try and get to a final position on what is meant by just compensation.

“I think that of the 4 000 white farmers on land at the moment, at least half of them will eventually be willing to sell. The old idea that the white farmers are clinging onto their farms is not really true any longer. Many of them want to get out of their farms, but at the moment they are asking for market value,” Horn said.

Piet Gouws of the Livestock Producers' Organisation (LPO) said expropriation has always been possible within the ambit of the Namibian Constitution, subject to certain criteria, and commercial landowners have a very definite view that if expropriation were to occur, it should be tested.

“As commercial landowners, we have a specific stance that should expropriation take place, it needs to be tested against these criteria, as well as Chapter 3 of the constitution that guarantees ownership. With regard to just compensation, it needs to be quantifiable, and expropriation is also coupled with emotions that need to be compensated for,” Gouws said.

The second land conference of 2018 passed 40 resolutions which include the establishment of a presidential commission of inquiry into ancestral land claims and restitution, expropriation with just compensation and removal of the Red Line, amongst others.

In 2018 the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) revealed that 70% of agricultural land belongs to white farmers, and despite 30 years of independence, a huge portion of indigenous Namibians still do not own the land.

The land conference also resolved to replace the willing seller, willing buyer principle as the primary method of land acquisition, and to develop national land valuation models to address high prices and expropriate foreign-owned agricultural land.

“The current Agricultural Commercial Land Reform Act, which the land reform ministry is implementing, provides for the expropriation with market-related compensation. While the Namibian Constitution provides for 'just compensation'. The current understanding of 'just compensation' is mixed with 'fair compensation'.

“We have approached the attorney-general for legal advice on both matters of market-related compensation and to interpret just compensation, if it is the same as fair compensation,” Matongela explained.

He further said the new Land Bill, which amalgamates the Communal Land Reform Act and Commercial Land Reform Act, is being adjusted to accommodate matters raised during the land conference.

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JEMIMA BEUKES