The tanzanian land acts

TanzaniaLaw · 2011-08-19T19:48:42+00:00

THE TANZANIAN LAND ACTS, 1999: THE TANZANIAN LAND ACTS, 1999: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ANALYSES Robin Palmer Land Policy Adviser, Africa Oxfam GB March 1999 Introduction On 11 February 1999 the Tanzanian Parliament passed The Land Act, 1999 and The Village Land Act, 1999. The first deals with general land, including urban areas and private estates outside the customary sector, and is fairly complex; the second deals with village lands and is generally more straightforward. At one stage of the drafting process, the two bills were combined. They were later divided into two for greater digestibility, but they form part of a whole and should be seen and interpreted together. Among those interpreting the Acts in recent articles are Issa Shivji, Liz Wily and the Ministry of Lands, in the form of Stella Longway, the Commissioner of Lands, and Fidelis Mutakyamilwa, Legal Officer, Land Development Services in the Ministry. Their articles are listed in an appendix at the end. Issa has written two submissions to a parliamentary committee, a workshop address and a newspaper article; Liz a presentation to district officials and an analysis for donors; the Ministry a paper for a DFID workshop on land tenure in sub-Saharan Africa. All are in effect analyses of the new Acts, though both Liz (whose papers were written last November) and Issa acknowledge that because there were changes in the Acts at the last minute, their comments will need to be revised to take account of this. What they have written are thus only preliminary assessments. Because of that, I have just attempted here to sketch the highlights rather than go into any great detail. It is important to be aware that the new Acts will not come into force until they have been translated into Kiswahili and gazetted. It view of the facts that, taken together, they are very long and extremely complex, the meaning is unclear in some places, and they will therefore not be easy to translate, this could take a considerable period of time. Liz Wily stresses that the two laws will provide what is in effect a body of new basic land law for mainland Tanzania with a new regime for the holding of rights in land and for controlling and managing land tenure. Eleven existing laws will be repealed by the Acts and six others amended. She notes with approval that ‘provision is made for the law to be under constant review and that amendments are routinely anticipated.' Engaging with the Ministry? Read more »

Thread starter TanzaniaLaw
Start date Aug 19, 2011

TanzaniaLaw

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Aug 19, 2011

Alexism

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