Kamanzi dismisses criticism over land lease processes

The Minister of Natural Resources, Stanislas Kamanzi, has dismissed critics of the land lease process, saying it does not constitute a challenge to citizens since payment applies to a “very limited” number of land owners.Speaking to Sunday Times, yesterday, the Minister observed that some people have tended to blow the matter out of proportion, especially regarding land dedicated to agricultural activities in rural areas.“Taking into account the very small size of land holding in Rwanda, payment of land lease fee applies to a very limited number of land owners. In fact one does not pay any fees for a piece of land that is less than two hectares and tenants pay no fees as well; this means that the overwhelming majority of our people are actually exonerated,” he noted.Kamanzi added that above two hectares, in the same category of land holding, land lease fee is Rwf1000 per hectare.“We should actually be thinking of increasing that amount. In this case, complaints are rather irrelevant,” he said.He stated that land lease also pertains to residential land and land assigned to other uses, adding that the issue is far from being the lease fee that is high. “The fee has always been Rwf 80 per square meter of land in Kigali City. Those with plots recorded in the City cadastre have been paying it all along. Of course, those not registered (informal owners of land) have been eluding it.”The minister explained that the issue came up when those informal land tenants got registered as part of the Land Tenure Regularization, due to be completed soon. People who were used to paying nothing and found themselves with no choice but complying with that obligation saw it as an additional burden, he added.He pointed out that there are a number of land holders in the City of Kigali who needed special attention, especially those living in rural-like areas within the Kigali City boundaries, and who registered their land as residential land while it really qualified as agricultural land.“Since most of these have quite sizable chunks of land, the fee calculated came up relatively high, making it impossible for them to pay. We solved this problem by re-registering such land as agricultural land and most of them got exempted of fee payment.”Kamanzi added that land demarcation issues have been “very marginal”, and should, thus, not be cited as a serious matter.According to Didier Sagashya, the Deputy Director General, Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, land conflicts among family members, such as inheritance, are not relevant to land management. “Land ownership becomes more challenging when registering it due to the fact that the land available is very little compared to big numbers of people who depend on and vie to own it,” he said.