Africa-Press – Malawi. Malawi could realize K6.4 billion from registration of over 400 million hectares of land, which remains unregistered thereby making it prone to abuse, a study by the National Planning Commission (NPC) says.
The report says of the 4.7 million hectares of unregistered patches of land, 3.2million is in rural areas while the remaining 1.5million in the urban areas.
NPC Research Manager, Andrew Jamali, made the revelation during a dissemination meeting on the Cost Analysis Benefits of Land Titling in Lilongwe on Monday that there are a lot of economic benefits in a land titling intervention within the National Land Policy.
“Once the land has been titled then it will begin to gain value because it can be used as collateral, security, also it can be sold on a higher amount of money and have more returns other than just keeping it idle,” he said.
He added that the focus for the nation should be making sure that land is titled for it to realize maximum benefits. He said there is a need to move in quickly to put in place structures that can operationalize the intervention including infrastructure and the staff.
Malawi is moving towards generating wealth for its people, he said. Oxfam Country Director Lingalireni Mihowa said her organisation in partnership with other stakeholders are doing a pilot program on customary land act registration in four districts of Kasungu, Phalombe, Neno and Rumphi.
“We have managed to register over 4000 pieces of customary land within these districts,” she said.
Through the program, she said, it has been revealed that the communities were happy to register and be the owners of the land that gives them tenure security as well as provide them with security interns of investment that they can put on.
However, land tenure is a crucial issue for Malawians with 20 percent of households insecure about their land ownership and title, fearing that the land would be encroached upon and taken away from them.
