AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Developments yesterday requested the Parliament to endorse 133.57bn/- budget of which 62.96 per cent is set to finance projects targeting to improve land tenure.
The ministry’s 2020/21 budget estimates and expenditure has shown significant increase after many years of receiving below 100bn/- budget.
The parliament approved 62.69bn/- for recurrent and development expenditures in 2019/20 fiscal year, the amount was slightly lower than 65.98bn/- which the ministry received a year earlier.
Moving his budget, Lands Minister Mr William Lukuvi announced that the ministry was seeking to end land disputes within and across the country’s territories.
He highlighted that among the many plans of the government was freezing district land and housing tribunals, transferring their duties to courts.
The existing tribunals have been deemed ineffective to supplement the judicial process in attending and resolving land disputes in the country.
Backing the initiative, Chairperson of the Bunge Committee on Lands, Natural Resource and Tourism, Kemirembe Lwota said there has been a lot of confusion within the district land and housing tribunals.
The committee believed that there were fewer land councils yet facing ethical and administrative dilemmas.
“Most administrators were not ethical, they had low education levels and likewise not fully employed,” she said when presenting the committee’s opinion.
The committee suggested, however, that the government must work together in developing better operational guidelines especially in court of laws to provide a friendly environment of court proceedings.
For the last five years, the land tribunals were able to resolve at least 131,603 land disputes.
As of April 30, the ministry administered about 5,892 disputes and is planning to handle 1,000 disputes during the financial year 2020/21.
Mr Lukuvi said the ministry is requesting 84.10bn/- for development expenditure in which 82.60bn/- is earmarked to improve land tenure.
“In a bid to enhance land tenure security, improve human settlements the ministry will be partnering with the World Bank in a strategic mission seeking to register at least 2.5million new title deeds in 2020/2021,” he explained.
He detailed that the largest creditor would be supporting the ministry in setting up regional and district land offices; building capacities to civil servants in the land sector; and strengthening the ministry’s Integrated Land Management Information System – ILMIS.
“I wish to announce that the government will also partner with its counterparts from the Republic of South Korea in enhancing mapping and surveying infrastructures.
The Programme will be financed by the South Korea’s Exim Bank,” he noted.
According to the minister, the project involves preparing basic maps, building a database of geo-information and its protection systems.
The funding also includes training surveyors.
Mr Lukuvi told the National Assembly that his ministry has been working around the clock, supporting national development projects including the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project (JNHPP), Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) the project, and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga in Tanzania.
He said the ministry has provided corridor development plans that will help cities, towns and villages better rearrange their land use.
Apparently the minister announced the government will be moving ahead to reconfirming its territorials/borders with the neighbouring countries.
Tanzania borders 10 other countries on its 1,841km land surface and additional 2,086km on water.
But the minister said the government has been able to reconfirm and strengthened only the 172-km-long border section with Kenya.
The minister meanwhile said the government has requested an additional 60,000 square kilometres from the international water body to enhance its economic activity that includes oil and gas explorations.
