25 Aug 2024

Government is set to reconsider reducing lease rental in tribal land for churches, agricultural land and mining surface rights.

That follows adoption of a motion which was tabled by Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, also Tonota MP, Mr Pono Moatlhodi in Parliament on Friday.

Tabling the motion, Mr Moatlhodi said although government charged lease rentals to make money for running the country’s affairs, it was necessary that the lease rental charges were not hefty.

He said churches were non-profit making organisations and charging them high rentals equalled to government collecting more than it should.

“Although some churches own huge land, some have contributed to the development of the country through building different schools and offering Batswana a place of worship. Religion is core to the good and unity of the country and has contributed to the peace and stability in the country,” he argued.

Also, Mr Moatlhodi said although most churches were duly registered and law abiding, some continued to worship in open and ungazetted spaces as they did not have a place of worship.

Therefore, he requested government to allocate land to churches and reduce their lease rentals.

On mining surface rights, he said the country was faced with high incidents of illegal sand mining across many rivers.

He said what was more worrying was that most of the illegal miners were foreign nationals and called for more efforts to protect the country’s rivers.

Also, Mr Moatlhodi said agricultural land was not exempted to pay for lease rentals hence the need to have their lease rental fees reduced too.

Minister of Lands and Water Affairs, Honourable Dr Kefentse Mzwinila said Parliament, had in the past resolved that the value of tribal land be equated to that of state land, which led to the increase of lease rental fees in tribal land.

Dr Mzwinila said since implementation of the changes, various stakeholders such as churches had complained about the high lease rentals, which had increased by about 120 per cent.

He said although the increase was done within the legal framework, it was evident that they were high, adding that Business Botswana and other stakeholders had also raised their complaints.

On mining surface rights, he said their lease rentals were also increased and added that the increase was substantial and unfavourable.

The minister said lease rentals for agricultural land were also increased and were not favourable to the community.

Furthermore, Dr Mzwinila said government had allocated various plots to some churches and some remained undeveloped.

However, he said the allocations were not enough and to speed up the process, the ministry was looking into using the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model to service civic and community land, adding that it was important that such land be serviced as churches attracted huge numbers.

He also said since lease rental fees were increased, there were substantial arrears hence the ministry supported the call to reduce the lease rental fees and further said consideration should also be made for the state land.

He further said government had come up with empowerment programmes such as Temo Letlotlo and Thuo Letlotlo, hence it would not be ideal for the same government to be demanding hefty charges from the programme beneficiaries.

He said there was a need for government to assist Batswana to derive value from their land.

The motion received thumbs up from many legislators across the political divide. ENDS