15 Dec 2024

Land board members are not employees of land boards and are governed by the Tribal Land Act while land board employees are governed by the Public Service Act.

Minister of Lands and Agriculture, Dr Micus Chimbombi gave the explanation when responding to a parliamentary question by Member of Parliament for Shashe West, Mr Jeremiah Frenzel.

Dr Chimbombi said although members of the land boards were supposed to be apolitical, he was aware that some of them were those  who lost the primary elections in the past administration.

However, he noted that appointment of land board members followed the selection process as prescribed in the Tribal Land Regulations of 2022 and the process involved advertisement, assessment, shortlisting and recommendation for appointment by the Ministerial Selection Committee.

Dr Chimbombi said Statutory Instrument No.91 and 92 of 2023 granted the minister powers to appoint three out of eight members at the main land board and two out of six at the subordinate land board outside of the list of candidates recommended by the ministerial selection committee.

He thus stated that in line with these statutory instruments the minister could at most appoint 118 out of 342 members outside the recommended list being 36 for main land board while 84 was for subordinate land board.

He further pointed out that in exercising the powers vested on the minister responsible for lands, his predecessor had appointed 80 out of the 118 and further empowered by Section 7 (2) to appoint a chairperson from members of the land board while the deputy chairperson was elected by the members among their numbers.

The minister said the appointment of the current members of the land boards followed a due process of the law as described by selection processes.

He therefore said the dissolution of the membership of the members of the land boards must be in accordance with the law and at the moment he had not found any legal reasons to dissolve their membership.

MP Frenzel had asked the minister if he was aware that most of the employees at land boards specifically board members were people who had lost primary elections from the past government, hence this raised a question of credibility. He also asked if there were any measures in place to dissolve current membership of land boards across the country. ENDS