Nationwide land demarcation starts today

A nationwide land adjudication and demarcation exercise is set to begin, starting with Bugesera District, Eastern Province today, Dr Emanuel Nkurunziza, Director General of National Land Centre has revealed. Land Adjudication and demarcation is the process of identifying particular lands through which existing rights of a particular parcel of land are finally and authoritatively ascertained. The land tenure regularisation programme follows the just finished trial of land registration in various areas; in Karongi, Kirehe, Musanze and Gasabo Districts. “Land is an economic asset people should have its security and even government deserves to have security over its land,” Nkurunziza said in a phone interview with The New Times, yesterday. “In a few cases we have come across, we have met people having taken government lands and others taking their neighbours lands just because they take advantage of non-demarcated land, this is going to be a solution to many.” At least Rwf 302 million has been budgeted to cover the whole programme that will take a minimum of three years to cover the whole country area of 26,340 square Kilometres. Nkurunziza said the demarcation of land will be followed by land registration by the respective owners, a process aimed at solving land disputes. This systematic Land Registration has been partly sponsored by UK Department for International Development (DFID) that covered a half of its budget. This has been welcomed by various land owners who will get land titles and land leases upon completion of the process. Major General Fred Ibingira, who heads a commission assigned to resolve land disputes in Eastern Province has welcomed the programme saying it will enable every land owner possess land legally. “This will make land owners have full rights on their land and have security over it more especially in Eastern Province where we have also sensitised residents to make their land productive,” Ibingira said. In a related development, Ibingira said his commission is winding up its work and will on 1st July hand in its report to the National Land Centre and Ministry of Lands and Mines. Ends