The government has calmed fears raised by the general population over its announcement that it will take over ownership of land that will be unregistered by December 30 this year.

Addressing the fears raised by the general population over this decision, the Director General of Rwanda Land Management and Use Authority, Esperance Mukamana, said that the government will only temporarily take over the ownership of this land until the owners come forward and have it registered.

By May this year, 86 per cent of the country’s total number of plots of land had been registered.

She said that this was aimed at cleaning up and updating the system that is currently being used.

"There is nothing that the government would gain from taking over anyone’s land. What we want is for people to do the right thing and have their land registered. If you fail to do that, the government will temporarily take over the ownership and will only return it to you after you have had the land legally registered,” she said.

She said no fines would be imposed on those acquiring their land from the government.

Changes motivation

Mukamana reminded that the land registration process kicked off in 2009 and was completed in 2013.

She explained that at the time, the process was mostly aimed at creating a database of landowners because before that, land was owned through customary means.

At the time, modern registration of land using digitalized systems and practical Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were done and aerial pictures taken to design maps for all land partitions owned by both the government and the people.

At the time, only slightly below 10 per cent of the country’s land was registered.

Mukamana said that after reviewing the results of the GIS and aerial view systems that had been used, it was discovered that not everyone had registered their land.

She said that the push to have land registered is motivated by many factors but important among them was the fact that land registration had significantly cut down on the number of land disputes.

"It has done a great job of fixing wrangles where the number of cases in courts of law that are related to land have significantly reduced but besides that, the owners of this registered land can now use these papers to for example acquire bank loans,” she said. 

Some challenges

Land registration has been successful. However, illegal subdivision as well as informal transfer of plots, especially those less than one hectare in size, are a challenge that needs to be addressed.

Stakeholders argue that the practice results in a mismatch between land-related information in the database and in reality.

Article 30 of the law governing land in Rwanda prohibits the subdivision of plots of land reserved for agriculture and animal resources if the result of such subdivision leads to parcels of land of less than a hectare.

Annie Kairaba, Chief Executive Officer of Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development (RISD) – a civil society organisation – recently said that this article was intended to reduce the informal transactions and registrations of land.

Before the land law was taken to competent organs for consideration, she said, a quick study that was done showed that over 60 per cent of Rwandans had 0.5 hectare land, especially in rural areas.

"Probably there is a need for more regulations on how to implement what the law provides because definitely, people who are subdividing informally have their land titles of one hectare and below, which is not allowed. So, it’s about enforcement, otherwise, the legal framework is perfect,” she said.

According to the land authority, 9,965,648 plots of land have been registered since 2009 when the land registration exercise began, and remaining ones without registration equal to 1,561,201 country-wide.