09 Apr 2025

The 2019 revised land policy aims to protect and promote land rights of all landholders, ensure access to land for citizens, encourage land retention, promote equity in land access and management. 

However, D’kar residents decry that they are currently residing in a freehold land which hinders them to embrace the amendments of the policy.

Speaking during the ongoing consultations led by a special Inter-Ministerial Committee in D’kar on Tuesday, Kgosi Waynard Morris said D’kar community resided within the Dutch Reformed Church land and that had badly affected their socio-economic status. 

He said government launched various poverty eradication programmes for rural area dwellers but because of their land status, they had limited or no access to such programmes. 

He acknowledged the assistance from the church as it had extended some basic provision to the community such as potable water.

Kgosi Morris therefore, pleaded with government to speed up their consultations with the current landowner on the transfer of land rights so that they would have full custody of the land and utilise it to to improve their livelihoods. 

He applauded President Advocate Duma Boko for the establishment of the Inter-Ministerial Committee which he said would afford Basarwa descendants the opportunity to elevate their social welfare concerns, and was hopeful of a holistic address to their concerns. 

He pleaded with the committee to extend consultations to other parts of the country to ensure that the outcome of the exercise was inclusive, and could aid an informed decision on promoting and protecting the rights of Basarwa as a whole. Another resident, Village Development Committee (VDC) member, Mr James Freddy said they accept relocation provided such was done in good faith and not “forced”. He also acknowledged that through consultation with the Dutch Reformed Church government managed to procure a piece of land where the community constructed a cooperative, maternity clinic and kgotla. 

He therefore said with further consultations between the church and government, they could secure more land to extended to the community and set up local industries to grow their local economy. 

On other issues, he decried about local business operators who use their artefacts for their own benefit. He pleaded with government to empower them so that they could protect their cultural artifacts so that they are not being exploited but rather empowered to generate their own income. 

Mr Freddy also said Basarwa ethnic groups were hunter-gatherers who knew how to manage natural resources against extinction. 

He assured legislators that, their reasons for relocations was not a ploy to hunt wild animals to extinction, but so that they could be empowered to managed them and use them for tourism activities to generate income. 

One resident, Mr Isaac Saulo decried poor representation of Basarwa in parliamentary and other senior positions and called for review of policies on RADP, land allocation and others to ensure inclusivity of all tribes in Botswana. 

He encouraged government to promote research exercises regarding the lives of Basarwa. Others, added that they should be an overhaul of the constitution, review of the settlement policy, protection of Basarwa indigenous culture and many more that would be aligned to human rights fundamentals. 

Ghanzi District Council chairperson, Mr Thabiso Kebadile, applauded the government for consultations with the marginalised groups within the first six months after assuming power. ENDS