Govt revokes at least 6 plantation title deeds

The government has revoked six title deeds of big plantations in Tanga Region, as part of ongoing efforts to reduce land conflicts and increase agricultural productivity.

 The announcement was made yesterday by the Ministe
r of State, President Office (Public Service Management) Celina Kombani, when responding to a supplementary question by Amina Mwidau, (Special Seats CUF) in the august House.

The MP wanted an explanation of steps taken by the government to allocate more farms to farmers in the region.

“In Tanga we have a lot of undeveloped plantations which deny expansion of agricultural activities, why doesn’t the government revoke these licenses and give the farms to the people?”She asked.

Responding on behalf of the Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements, Minister Kombani said already the government has revoked licenses from Bombwera, Kihuhwi, Sagulas, Lewa, Kwafungo and Kilapula plantations.

She said the farms will now be allocated to residents to carry out agricultural activities and the move is envisioned to reduce conflicts between farmers and investors.

According to her, more farm licenses in the region will be revoked upon Presidential approval, she also informed the House that authorities are in the process of arranging for the development of the farms.

Explaining further, she said the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Settlements has forwarded recommendations to the President’s Office for revocation of title deeds of undeveloped farms.

This was done according to the Section 48(3) of the Land Act no 4 of the year 1999 which allows the government to revoke land licenses where an investor has failed to develop the land for a long time.

According to the Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Marketing, Christopher Chiza, most of the farms were not developed due to existing conflicts as their owners simply used them as collateral to acquire bank loans.

He was quoted by this paper as saying;“We are monitoring other investors in the sisal sector so that we can know the challenges they are facing before we embark on searching for other serious investors to develop the farms.”

He said there are some investors who took bank loans using the farms as collateral and failed to repay the loans, thus forcing banks to hold on to the title deeds.

He explained that the decision to privatise large farms was reached by the government between 1996 -1999 and was implemented through the defunct Parastatal Sector Reform Commission (PSRC).

He said the aim was to ensure proper utilisation of the sisal plantations by the investors, but unfortunately some of them, including those who were allocated three plantations, failed to develop them.