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| Workshop Report on Land Problems in Botswana Particularly in Peri-Urban Areas (Mogoditshane)
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| 3. Land Board Perspective by Sarah George, Principal Land Officer, Department of Lands
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Botswana has three land tenure systems namely state land, tribal land and free hold land. State and tribal land are used for residential purposes. Free hold farmland is used for whatever use the owner wants to put the land to, here people have the rights to do whatever they wish. The land boards do not have any control over the use of such land.
The Land Boards have the responsibility to administer all the land in the tribal land areas while the Department of land is responsible for Land in the state land area.
For the purposes of the workshop, priority is on the Mogoditshane area and they fall under the Kweneng district and is primarily administered by the Mogoditshane Sub Land Board. The problem in Mogoditshane is as a result of the expansion of Gaborone. All areas surrounding major towns have problems with land. As people move to these cities in search of work or visits, the cities become overcrowded.
The problem of waiting endlessly for the allocation of plots is very frustrating. The problem is not that of the land board alone it emanates from the slow acquiring of fields from the field owners. The law in Botswana does not allow for the land board the seize fields they have to be given up by the field owners. As a result people have sometimes settled on these fields illegally, built illegal structures leading to squatting.
The Land Board has the mandate to administer that the land is used in the right manner and as a result in Mogoditshane the Land Board has acted according to its mandate. It has removed those that settled on tribal land illegally. They have been removed from this piece of land because they have occupied that piece of land without the proper authority to do so. We are all aware that many people have been affected by these demolitions. Fora such as this will look at how incidents like this will be avoided in the future.
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