Africa-Press – Botswana. Ministry of Lands and Water Affairs has been inundated with queries concerning the Revised Tribal Land Act Regulation Fee Schedule, says deputy permanent secretary, Mr David Stimela.
Addressing North East District Special Full Council session on Wednesday about Proposed Revision of the Tribal Land Act Regulations, 2022 Fee Schedule, Mr Stimela said the queries surrounded the revised charges.
“The Ministry then engaged land boards to seek their input in order to come up with fees which would be favourable to all,” he said.
Mr Stimela stated that it was important that in considering the fees, the ministry should consider instituting different rates depending on locality basing on Prime Areas versus Rural Areas similar to property valuation concept.
Another consideration, he said, would be inflationary adjustments and policy objectives for a particular year, discouraging transfers of land to foreigners, adding that there would be a standing committee to review rates on an annual basis.
He noted that some of the proposals were that Advert Tender Document that was revised from the previous P500 to P1 000 be reversed to P500 and P250 for youth, underprivileged, women and people with disabilities.
However, he said application for transfer of undeveloped land recognised the value of land and that a land board would have incurred costs in terms of stationary and other logistics.
The transfer levy that was revised from P100 to P3 000 was now proposed to be reduced to P1 000, following a public outcry.
“Transfer applications in case of divorce, between spouses and inheritance with certificate is proposed to carry a fee of P200,” he said and pointed out that inheritance without certificate or allocation by traditional leadership would be P500.
He explained that for civic and community plots, while previously it was P100 per annum without consideration of plot size, the proposal was between 25 thebe per metre square to 75 thebe per metre square per annum.
Mr Stimela said the proposed fees acknowledged that there were different types of civic and community land uses such as places of worship, which were not profit-making and those are different churches with different streams and ways of making income. The proposed fees for such is reduced to 25 thebe per square metre per annum from 55 per square metre per annum.
Responding to the address, councillor for Matsiloje/Matopi, Ms Florah Mpetsane indicated that to apply for land in Botswana was tantamount to applying for poverty. Ms Mpetsane said by so doing, people were putting themselves in everlasting debt that they were going to die with. She also complained that the cost recovery was exorbitant.
She proposed that local schools should pay lesser amount.
Cllr Molomo Maano of Ditladi proposed that transfer fee for plots be reduced from P3 000 to P200 as the elderly and youth did not have money for that exercise and complications arose after the death of a parent.
He suggested that fees for ploughing field or areas with animals such as elephants should be reduced as compensation for animal destruction was also low, resulting in farmers not reaping any benefits or profits from the fields.
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