Officials call for fair expropriation operations

Public servants and members of the civil society gathered in a one-day meeting in Kigali yesterday called for fairness when carrying out expropriation operations in the capital city Kigali. The meeting was organised by the government in partnership with Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development (RISD), a local Non-Governmental Organisation, to exchange ideas on how to end lingering disputes in the expropriation process in different areas of Kigali City. Several expropriation operations are on-going in the town as more people, especially developers, build new structures in public interest following the city’s new Master Plan. The country’s Registrar of Land Titles, Eugene Rurangwa, told the participants in the meeting that some mentalities and ignorance among property owners are some of the reasons why the expropriation process creates disputes. “Some people used to think that a person with a land title could not be expropriated. Those are old ideas,’ he said. He explained that no one is exempted to the act when the law is respected in the process where one has to give away his land for use in the interest of the public and gets a fair compensation. The State Minister in Charge of Water and Mines, Vincent Karega, underscored that people’s rights must be respected in the process and that the intended programmes should benefit all parties involved. “We need to ensure that no one is left out,” he said, adding,“We need to work in transparency, adopt zero tolerance to corruption, and be professional.” The president of the National Land Commission, Vincent Ngarambe, said that the country’s land laws are clear, only that some people violate them. Some authorities have been reported in cases where property owners were unfairly expropriated or where some were holding different land titles for the same land due to corruption. “There is need to improve services. The land laws are clear enough but the implementers have shown many weaknesses,” Ngarambe said. Three years ago, at least 90 percent of the land in Rwanda was reportedly managed using traditional laws. However, government has since come up with a new organic land law. More land management instructions will soon be out to help implement the country’s land laws and policies. Ends