Africa-Press – Botswana. Tawana Land Board is currently experiencing an influx of registration of plots for inheritance claims in prime areas.
The land board chairperson, Mr Emmanuel Dube told a press conference in Maun Monday that the plots were claimed in such areas as river banks, Boro, Boronyane, Khwai and Seronga.
He expressed concern that upon acquisition, beneficiaries sold the plots.
“This is of high concern to us because it raises doubts if such inheritance claims are genuine and I call upon stakeholders to be vigilant and demand provision of evidence on such,” he said.
He also pleaded with members of the public to choose to do the right thing, and lease such plots for use rather than putting them up for sale.
Mr Dube also stated that the land board was receiving lots of complaints from members of the public who had been cheated by fraudulent people.
He said it emerged that such occurred when victims opt to make financial transactions prior to verification of documents of rights or existence of such plots.
Members of the public were advised to approach sub-land boards to verify if the sellers had plots and if the certificates were authentic before they could perform any financial transactions.
Furthermore, Mr Dube noted that the land board was owed P39 million in lease rental arrears by plot owners, adding that the amount was inclusive of land uses of concessions, ranches, commercials, industrials and civic.
He called on defaulters to come forth and pay their dues because non-payment may lead to plot repossession and in the new Tribal Land Act such could be done through the Land Tribunal.
In addition, he said failure to pay dues would make it difficult for land board to facilitate any request concerning a plot that was in arrears with regard to services that included transfers, change of land use, sub divisions among others.
Mr Dube said people should understand that unlike other government departments, land boards operated partly from these revenues, hence reducing the burden of finance from the government.
With regard to residential plot allocation, he noted that as of March 31, Tawana Land Board had allocated 9 869 residential plots against the 17 918 target.
A further 329 was allocated in the first week of April, taking the total allocation to 10 198.
Mr Dube said such was a big achievement for Tawana Land Board as for the past 10 years the maximum number of plots allocated in a year by all land boards in the country had never exceeded 8 000.
“I am proud to announce that we managed to exceed the number as we allocated more plots than any other land board in the country.
We achieved this through collaboration and hard work with our six sub-land boards in the region.
A decision has been made that what was promised Batswana must be delivered,” he stressed.
He acknowledged that land boards across the country promised 100 000 plots, of which Tawana Land Board must contribute 17 918 plots, and currently 9 869 had been delivered.
Mr Dube noted that efforts were being made to deliver the remaining balance by June, adding that they had planned to allocate 5 419 residential plots by May 30.
Although the figure, he said still remained far short of the target, he partly attributed the shortfall to the fact that some villages were affected by Strategic Environmental Assessment, an issue yet to be resolved.
However, he happily announced that some villages had plots but no waiting lists, citing areas such as Tsodilo, Nxaunxau and Kaputura.
In such villages, the board promised to allocate plots to applicants within one month of application.
Mr Dube said commercial allocations were advertised in all the six sub-land boards and currently 84 plots had been allocated except Maun sub- Land Board, which was currently conducting interviews with a view to allocate 164 plots end of May.
In addition, he said it had also emerged that 30 plots at Gumare and Sehithwa had not been applied for, as such commercial plots would be re-advertised including 94 industrial ones at Shakawe.
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