By Staff Reporter
THE Minister of Lands and Resettlement Hon. Alpheus Naruseb recently visited the Caprivi region as part of a four day individual consultative meeting with the four Traditional Authorities of the Caprivi region and the Caprivi Communal Land Board on July 5 – 8.

Lands Minister began by thanking all Traditional Authorities of the Caprivi and the Caprivi Communal Land Board for their contributions and commitment during the meetings.
He explained that the Traditional Authorities and Communal Land Board raised issues and questions regarding Land matters in the region.
The Minister added that the registration of land rights in Communal areas is very important because it gives security to land holders, their spouses, children and their dependants and it also ensures that a land holder has documentary proof of their to land and know the boundaries and exact size of the legally allocated land parcel.
“Given the above, it is the Ministry`s intentions to accord reasonable time and opportunity to all the Traditional communities in the Communal areas of this country to enjoy the above benefits by registering their land rights”, explained Hon. Naruseb.
The Minister said that for this reason, his Ministry has accepted the Board`s unanimous request to consider the extension of time for the registration of existing land rights to a further date beyond the current deadline of February 2014.
Other Issues on the occasion that received attention were delay in the issuance of land rights certificates by the Communal Land Boards, Hon Naruseb explained that he had addressed with the secretariat of the Caprivi Communal Land Board and that they will communicate with the respective Traditional Authorities on the status of the applications pending issuance of land right certificates.
The other matter that was touched on was Land disputes, the Minister explained that land disputes among members of the traditional communities should be addressed with their respective Traditional Authorieties, “Traditional Authorities are there to assist government in administering Communal Land thus they are the first point of call when it comes to handling land disputes”.
Other issues that were also touched in the meeting were difficulties in registering group rights of families to land, displaced families and the maximum prescribe limit of 20ha for customary land right allocation.