UPND to Address PF Illegal Customary Land Conversions

In a recent meeting with traditional leaders in Lusaka, President Hakainde Hichilema acknowledged that the Patriotic Front regime had unlawfully redesignated up to 55,000 hectares of customary land as state land during their time in office.

The Zambian Land Alliance (ZLA), which represents many of those who were victims of the Patriotic Front’s illegal land conversions, expressed relief that President Hichilema had taken their petition seriously and was addressing the misdeeds of his predecessor Edgar Lungu. ZLA Executive Director Patrick Musole described the alliance’s members as feeling “pleased” and “vindicated”.

President Hichilema met with traditional leaders to understand what land had been converted. He asked who had authorised such an enormous tract of land, and guaranteed to the ZLA board that the UPND government would under no circumstances authorise land conversions that did not follow due process to the last detail.

Mr. Musole explained to the President that thousands of Zambians across the country had been displaced by illegal land conversions, many of them large-scale that had forced out entire communities “from the land where they were born and grew up, without following the provision of the resettlement policy.”

The ZLA Executive Director added that “the President is now singing from the same hymn sheet with the organisation by questioning Chiefs about how thousands of hectares were converted without consultation. We feel this is a good start in the right direction.”

Given that 250 hectares is the conversion maximum, unless land changes were undertaken totally illegally without any respect for the law or bureaucratic process, hundreds of pockets of land at the least were individually and deliberately converted to state land unlawfully.

ZLA has pointed out that the Chiefs approving land conversion are “at the bottom of the chain of the land conversion process”. All conversions were recommended to the Commissioner of Lands, who was the only official with the ability to issue land titles in the name of the President.

Speaking on who should be held responsible, Mr. Musole insisted that “The Commissioner of Lands […] should be held responsible for illegal conversions of land, and not the Chiefs as the chiefs cannot issue certificates of title.” He continued, saying that ZLA’s stance was that “accountability for the illegal conversions needs to be extended to all players who played a role in the process”.