The Zambia Land Alliance has called for […]

The Zambia Land Alliance has called for the increase in funding of the Lands Tribunal, a subdepartment of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources that handles disputes.

 Established under the 1995 Lands Act, the Tribunal is designed to provide a fast, accessible, and low-cost way to resolve land conflicts.

 Recently, the Ministry announced that the Tribunal has been decentralized to increase accessibility to resolution of disputes starting with the Copperbelt Province.

 Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times—ZBT, ZLA Executive Director Patrick Musole hauled the decentralization project but observed that the tribunal has failed to meet its full mandate due to less funding.

“The lack of decentralization at first made it ineffective, but this is a step in the right direction, because it enhances access to communities,” he stated.

 “We also want to demand that the Tribunal should have fulltime judges; having part-time staff is not sustainable.”

 Musole urged the Ministry to expedite the process of expansion to other provinces, considering the high rate of disputes across the country.

 However, he observed that without adequate financing, increasing efficiency is nearly impossible. Zambia has a two-tier system of land ownership, state and customary land, and the latter is where most of the conflicts are recorded.

Article by Samuel Mutale