Family land rows hamper registration exercise

The Deputy Director General, Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, Didier Sagashya, has said that land conflicts among family members are the main challenges to the land registration process.

Friday, February 03, 2012
Deputy Director General, Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, Didier Sagashya. The New Times / File.

The Deputy Director General, Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, Didier Sagashya, has said that land conflicts among family members are the main challenges to the land registration process.

Speaking to The New Times yesterday, he stated that most of the land related disputes highlighted during Governance Month are conflicts between family members.

"One finds that people living in polygamous families have rampant land disputes, which then often escalate into acts of violence,” he asserted.

Sagashya mentioned that, although land registration is solving disputes among people, some families fail to agree on sharing their piece of land.

"We have so far registered 8000 families with land wrangles in the book dedicated to land disputes. We shall wait for these people to agree on who has the right to land before we register it to them,” he noted.

He mentioned that the land body has so far demarcated and adjudicated 9 million parcels of land countrywide despite the challenge of family land disputes.

Land demarcation and adjudication is set for completion by June next year and the issuing of land titles is set to be finished by December 2013.