Culture Radio/Green Scenery End National Land Conference
By Theophilus Sahr Gbenda and Ilyasa Baa
With support from Bread for the World and Welt Hunger Hilfe,
Culture Radio FM 104.5 and Green Scenery, have ended a three-day national land
governance conference, held Monday 11th – Wednesday 13th
July 2016 at the Sierra Leone Police officers Mess in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Under the theme ‘Our Land – Our Right – Our
Responsibility’, the conference which brought together civil society
organizations working on land rights, print and electronic journalists,
landowners as well as land users from across the country, aimed at highlighting
the gaps in land deals with multinational companies investing in agriculture
and how a win-win situation can be achieved so as to avoid imminent conflicts.
At the opening ceremony witnessed by distinguished
personalities from government line ministries such as the Ministry of Land
Country Planning and the Environment, security forces including the police and
army, international non-governmental organizations, donor agencies and the
German Embassy in Freetown, statements aimed at dilating on the complexities
and realities surrounding large scale and long term land acquisition by
multinational companies, were made.
Research based power point presentations
on key thematic issues such as the current land situation in the country as it
relates to international investments in land, the possibilities and challenges
of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land,
Fisheries and Forests in the context of national food security (VGGT) and the current
status of the legal reform process around land – the new National Land Policy,
the chapter on land in the abridged version of the constitutional review process
and road ahead of implementation, were also made.
In his statement, Dr.
Alphajoh Cham representing the Ministry of Land Country Planning and the Environment, spoke about the
land tenure system and governance in Sierra Leone, pointing out that existing
challenges range from inequitable land access and large-scale land acquisition
to lack of geo-spatial and cadastral information system, conflicting interests
on land use for public and private purposes, and corruption.
Dr. Cham said the relevance of the new National Land
Policy is anchored on the fact it is a national priority under Pillar 2 of the
Agenda for Prosperity 2013-2018, strategy 7.3 under the Post-Ebola Recovery
Plan, and it also in tandem with goals 15, 11, 5, 2 and 1 under the Sustainable
Development Goals (zero hunger, gender equality, sustainable cities, poverty
eradication etc.).
The specific objectives of the
policy, among other things, he said, is to promote land law reforms, ensure
tenure security and protect land rights, promote equitable access, promote sound
land use planning and development, decentralize land administration and reduce/eradicate
land disputes and/or conflicts.
In his statement representing civil society organizations
working around land rights issues, Executive Director of Sustainable Environment
and Development Association (SEDA) Bun Wai, said, the country’s land tenure
system is burdened with major challenges of poor governance and inequitable
distribution.
He noted that the assumption by government and local
authorities that investors are indispensable in achieving national economic
development has greatly undermined the rights of ordinary people to own land,
stressing that government is constantly transferring ownership of land from
poor families to so-called investors through unfair deals that are not
predicated on free, prior and informed consent.
Injustice in the land sector, Mr. Bun Wai who happens to be
the Acting Coordinator of the Action for Large Scale Land Acquisition
Transparency (ALLAT) said, could be a recipe for conflict and political
unrest, unless the right steps are taken to right the situation.
Muniru Koroma representing the
Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) on the
special chapter on land in the upcoming new constitution of the Republic of
Sierra Leone explained that the abridged version of the new constitution
recommends the maintenance of the two tier land tenure system and the removal
of all forms of discrimination on land ownership in the country.
He said to protect citizens’ land
rights, the CRC recommends that non-citizenship ownership should be limited to
lease land for a period not exceeding 25 years and subject to approval by the
community and/or land owning families.
According to him, well over 30 old
land laws are to be repealed by parliament in order to engender more fairness
and equity in the ownership and use of land in the country, adding that there
is a recommendation which sprouts from the National Land Policy for the
establishment of a National Land Commission.
Delivering the keynote address, the
German Ambassador to Sierra Leone Ambassador Wolfgang Wiethoff echoed that the people and Government of Sierra
Leone own the land reform process and therefore bear the responsibility of
determining which trajectory it should take.
Ambassador Wolfgang Wiethoff reiterated the fact that vast majority
of the people depend on land for livelihood, mainly through agriculture. This
he pointed out is as a result of the fact that other sectors have not been able
to provide adequate employment opportunities.
As the reform process
progresses, he said all stakeholders should ask the following question along
the way: Are there adequate laws? Are the laws too old? Do the laws treat
everybody equally? Are policies and laws fully implemented? Is there the
political will?
He went further to say that land
management and use should be within the context of poverty alleviation, food
security, creating job opportunities and engendering national economic
development, adding that Sierra Leone has the potential to produce enough food
for the open market and for export.
The role of civil society
organizations and the media, Ambassador Wolfgang Wiethoff maintained, is as important as the success of the reforms hoped
for.
He
congratulated Culture Radio and Green Scenery for organizing the conference,
concluding that the role of the German diplomatic team is to observe and
provide support for the land reform process.
Presenting an overview on international land deals in the
country, the Programs Manager of the Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food
(SiLNoRF), Abass J. Kamara, said since 2007, there has been
rapid large-scale land takeover from poor and vulnerable people mostly farmers
by big mining companies and multinational companies operating in the
agricultural sector.
He said the widely accepted
view that Sierra Leone has abundant arable land has been contradicted by
empirical research which states that there is already pressure for arable land
in the country.
Mr. Kamara added that land
deals such as those struck by Sierra Leone China Agricultural Development Company,
Socfin Agriculture, African Land Limited and the defunct ADDAX Bioenergy, are
appalling and unrepresentative of the people’s interest.
The consequences of bad land
deals he went on, include destruction of livelihoods, increased potential for conflict
and other social problems.
On
the current status of legal reform process, Lawyer Sonkita Conteh, head of the
legal aid group NAMATI emphasized the need for mass awareness raising around
land related issues.
He
said most people do not have access to information, do not know what they have,
what their rights are and how they can defend these rights. NAMATI, he said, provides
assistance in this regard.
He disclosed
that the act whereby government sets prices for community and family land is
illegal and also withholding 50% from land sale proceeds by government is
blatant thievery.
Lawyer
Sonkita Conteh referred to the new National
Land Policy as a good policy and that its full implementation is the next
important step for stakeholders. He emphasized the need to transform the policy
into law for it to have full legal effect.
The question as to whether the laws would be codified into one law or
several still lingers, he stressed.
On
experiences from Sahn Malen, an affected community in Pujehun, former Member of
Parliament Shiaka Musa Sama who happens to be the spokesman of the Malen
Affected Land Owners Association (MALOA) said there is constant
harassment and intimidation of MALOA members,
a civil society organization formed to articulate and defend the rights of land
owning families.
On
the way forward, he said government must set up among other things, an
independent body to investigate the issue and pay commensurate compensation to
people who have lost their lands.
Madam
Maria Teresa Perez Rocha from
the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) in Uruguay, delivering a presentation, said
her organization provides support to communities that grapple with the
challenge of defending their territories and forests against multinational
companies.
She said
WRM, since its establishment, has provided support to communities affected by
large-scale industrial tree plantations in Latin America, Asia and Africa,
adding that large scale industrial tree plantations often create severe
problems and conflicts for local communities.
Awareness
raising and media engagement, she noted, have exposed bad companies and this
has had serious repercussion on their finances.
Also making
presentations at the conference where Joseph Rahall of Green Scenery, Christian
Schultz of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) who spoke about the importance of the VGGT in protecting land
rights and Peter Pijpers representing Natural Habitat, one of the multinational
companies operating in the country.
Despite being critical of him, conference
participants praised the Natural Habitat manager for honouring the invitation
to deliver a statement regarding the operation of the company and its impact on
communities affected by its work. This is so because multinational companies
hardly attend such events.
The conference ended with the formulation of a National Advocacy Strategy
and a National Media Strategy, as well as a communiqué demanding for positive changes
in the country’s land governance system.
Special guests at the conference were Marion Aberle, Head International
Advocacy Team of Welt Hunger Hilfe in Germany, Caroline Kruckow and Andrea Mueller from Bread for the
World in Germany and Maria Teresa Perez Rocha from the World Rainforest
Movement in Uruguay.
