Minister of Urban and Rural Development Sophia Shaningwa has warned land grabbers that their activities will not be tolerated, while adding that they were being used as a front by people with ulterior motives.
The minister also said she has not yet been briefed about the chaotic and violent land debacle in Rehoboth last Monday, where land activists are demanding the pre-allocation of land, as stipulated in President Hage Geingob’s Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP).
The Rehoboth community, under the leadership of community activist Abes Kaibeb, is being technically assisted by the Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement.
There were chaotic scenes in the town last week, when the police clashed with land grabbers.
Shaningwa questioned the urgency and sudden demands for the pre-allocation of land, adding that the HPP is not even two months old yet.
The minister warned those wanting to grab land as follows: “We don’t force things in Namibia… tell your people we do things procedurally. There will be no land grabbing tolerated in Namibia. We are working very hard.”
According to her, the sudden threats to grab land by Namibians is just a front used by people, who have ulterior motives.
“Why are they starting it now? They must just tell us what they want, they must not go behind the land issue.”
“If they want something else, they must just come out straight,” she said.
According to Kaibeb, he has already collected more than 1 500 land applications, which will be submitted to the Rehoboth Town Council.
According to the AR representative in Rehoboth, Andre von Broen, they simply want government to rollout the pre-allocation of land under the HPP.
“We will submit 3 000 land applications to the council. We will request the minister to instruct the town council to immediately rollout the pre-allocation,” said Von Broen.
“We are not going to speak about riots and caucuses, you are going to try to get a meeting with the minister, with regard to the agreement between the President and AR,” he said.
The Massive Urban Land Servicing Programme, which was agreed upon between Geingob and the AR movement in July last year, remains a priority under the Harambee blueprint
There had also been an agreement around the pre-allocation of land by municipalities, which is expected to deliver a greater number of serviced plots.
JEMIMA BEUKES