Foreign land ownership and Article 16 constitutional promise

In the year 2018, the conscious activists and concerned Namibians marched to the National Assembly to submit a petition to the speaker of the National Assembly on foreign ownership of land. To assist Members of Parliament, the petition came in the form of a draft bill that provided an understandable context and content. It is for the first time that citizens submitted a bill to parliament. The law-making process has always been dominated by the executive through its Cabinet Committee on legislation. Parliament is dwarfed and effectively surrendered itself to this committee. Our dear departed former Speaker of the National Assembly, Theo-Ben Gurirab once bemoaned executive dominance over the legislature.At the time when the bill was submitted, the executive had circumvented the law and indirectly sold several farms to a Russian billionaire in the Dordabis area. This billionaire had advertised a bribe in a screaming full-page advertisement in the local media seducing salivating corrupt political elite governing land affairs. If this was done publicly, we wonder what he did behind closed doors. Scandalously, this was also during the gimmick land conference called by the regime to quell demands on aggressive land reform. We did not attend this gimmick because we knew better. Those who legitimised the event later came to vindicate our position. Indeed, as they loaded bags into public buses to Windhoek for the gimmick conference, founding son of Namibia, Uutoni Nujoma, then lands minister, was busy organising farms for the Russian billionaire. Some time ago, the very same Nujoma had tagged Chinese along to present and seduce cabinet to get 10 000 hectares of fertile and productive Agricultural land in the Zambesi to produce dangerous “drugs”. The land he gave to the Chinese to produce “drugs” is more than all the government Agricultural green schemes in our country combined.As such, the Regulation of Foreign Ownership of Land bill was submitted as a bastion of defending the land our forefathers fought and died for at the time it was willingly being sold to rich foreigners while Namibians are languishing in poverty, hunger and landlessness. Perhaps it is important to provide both the history and the present synopsis of the matter at hand.By 1902, white settlers had already acquired close to 4 million hectares; concession companies 29 million hectares and the colonial administration 19 million hectares. To assist those mathematically challenged, one hectare of land is equivalent to one football stadium. Six years later, by 1908, between 70 and 80 percent of the Hereros and 50 percent of the Namas were exterminated by the Germans, resulting in additional loss of land. Between 1930 and 1940, about 30 million hectares of Namibian land was given to the ‘arm boer’ – the poor and uneducated Afrikaners as a way to solve the poor white problem in South Africa. After the Second World War (WWII), an additional 7 million hectares was given to soldiers that participated in that war as reward.By 1908, when Sacharia Lewala found the first diamond in the then Angra Penquena (present day Lüderitz), the labour situation in our country changed. By then the population in the south had drastically reduced due to the German’s genocide on the Nama and Ovaherero people. The colonial state established the Southern Labour Organisation (SLO) and the Northern Labour Organisation (NLO) in 1920. SLO recruited Aawambo workers at its office in Ondangwa to go work in the mines and farms in southern Namibia. NLO on the other hand, at its Rundu office, recruited workers to work in northern mines and farms. In the 1940s, SLO and NLO were combined to form the South West Africa Native Labour Association (SWANLA). This brutal contract labour system kept Namibians in those farms with most of them not allowed to return to their homes. Some of them died in those farms while others, who had started families in those farms, were later evicted by the settler’s children and grandchildren. Land dispossession not only created landlessness but also slavery and destruction of family lives of the natives.Our country’s landmass is calculated at more than 800 000 square kilometres translating to about 82 million hectares. Of the 82 million hectares, 39 is agricultural freehold land. Of the 39 agricultural freehold land, whites, majority of whom are Afrikaners, own 27 million hectares or 70 %. Blacks only own 16% of the 39 million hectares. The government owns a mere 5 million hectares or 14%. From this figure, we know that 12 380 farms are privately owned; 7 000 by individuals, 2 800 by companies, 1 200 by the government, 150 by trusts and 61 by churches.In our country, 250 farms measuring 1.2 million hectares (1.2 million football stadium) are owned by foreigners. Germans own 640 000 hectares, South African 300 000 hectares and the Americans 82 000 hectares. The remainder is shared between foreigners from Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, China, Italy and Canada.At Independence, the adopted neoliberal constitution protected commercial land owned by the settlers and expropriated communal land owned by the blacks without compensation. This settler protecting constitution had made a promise in article 16 (1) that whereas it is allowed for anyone on earth to acquire, own and dispose land anywhere in Namibia, “Parliament may by legislation prohibit or regulate as it deems expedient the right to acquire property by persons who are not Namibian citisens”. It goes further to extend such powers to the property that is already owned by foreign nationals. This can legally be achieved by lawfully expropriating property owned by foreign nationals in the public interest, if Parliament enacts a law that will set out the requirements and procedures envisaged by article 16 (2).Despite this constitutional promise in article 16, the post-colonial state, over the past 32 years of flag independence, failed to fulfil this constitutional promise. The bill that was submitted to Parliament in 2018 effectively seeks to fulfil the constitutional promise. The bill not only fulfills the promise, it also details how Agricultural (commercial) land, urban land and communal land can be safeguarded from foreign capture. It also provides for the circumstances under which foreigners can utilise land. Indeed, it also details how the 1.2 million hectares currently in foreign hands can be dealt with.The National Assembly has given the bill to the standing committee on natural resources which has commenced public hearings. A number of stakeholders have thus far presented their views to the committee including an all-male delegation that presented on behalf of the Women of Namibia and the Agricultural Union of Namibia. Despite our misgiving about their reactionary and capitalist positions, we welcome their willingness to participate in this national debate. We particularly salute the Standing Committee chairperson Hon. Tjekero Tweya and the members for their dedication to this important national duty. We look forward to the re-tabling and report of the committee in the National Assembly.* Job Shipululo Amupanda is the Activist-in-Chief of the AR movement and former Mayor of Windhoek. Maitjituavi Stanley Kavetu is AR Head of Legal and Benedick Moody Louw is the AR Special Envoy on the Land Indigenisation Bill.

Foreign land ownership and Article 16 constitutional promise

Comments

Namibian Sun 2026-08-06

Please login to leave a comment

Foreign land ownership and Article 16 constitutional promise

Comments

Namibian Sun 2026-08-06

Please login to leave a comment

Subscription Required to Access Content ×

Login

Subscription Required to Access Content