Malawi losing K6.4bn by not registering 400m hectares of land

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.

Andrew Jamali, NPC Research Manager

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.

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Paul
Paul
2 years ago

As I stated earlier, government should look into researching this land issue. Historic land allocation problems exposed in Zimbabwe, RSA, Namibia, Kenya, etc. will one day rule the day in Malawi. Even a fair vetting will not stop rich foreigners paying poor(er) local Malawian monies to purchase real estate. Indeed, any land sold require owners being privy to real estate law, i.e. whether land is sold as freehold or leasehold. Similarly, land grabs that have already taken place need to revisit this. There cannot be perpetual profiteering that denies citizens to rightful (inheritance) equity. This should work in similar fashion… Read more »

nafundo zalo
nafundo zalo
2 years ago

zisatikhuze zopembedza mafanozi.
you mean till today the ”educated people” still believe za ma plofeti???? sad.
siminaziwise anthu kuti kuli ma dhilu amenewa nde jist fF off

Chiothamisi
Chiothamisi
2 years ago

Anthu omaganiza chonchi ndamene akufunika pa Malawi pano

Paul
Paul
2 years ago

The land issue will be the next hot potato in the years to come. I would urge cool heads and look carefully at the reasons behind this rather than profit for the government. Land is about families and tribes. It would be wrong to ignore the common fact that even families do have their own crisis and therefore may not be privy to good advice regarding selling off family assets or even amicable share of the proceeds. As the gap between the haves continues to outstrip that of the haven’t; it is clear that land buyers will remain those rich… Read more »

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