Transcript
EUGENE EZEBILO: Customary lease which involved customary landowners coming together to form a group, a registered group of people owning a piece of land in the form of what is called an Incorporated Land Group. Then after that the next thing for them to do is register their land in order for them to have a land title which we refer to as a Voluntary Customary Land Registration (VCLR) system. The SABL negates from this support system, therefore making customary landowners not to benefit as much as they could. So that's one of the reasons we have the Voluntary Customary Land Registration process. So with the cancellation of SABLs, the next thing will be to bring out guidelines of a way to dismantle SABLs and convert SABLs to customary leases so that the customary landowners can benefit.
JOHNNY BLADES: Remember at the start of the SABLs, it was meant to be that the landowners would also benefit from the SABL system. On paper it didn't sound like a bad idea, but it's just the way that it was mainly implemented, where lots of the customary landowners weren't consulted and so forth. How can we be sure that converting it to this new arrangement is going to work either?
EE: The system has been tried already, like you have a case where an SABL was converted to a customary lease, and the customary landowners, I think they're also benefiting from it, because with it, the customary landowners have the opportunity to negotiate directly with the developer, or the potential developer. But for the SABL case, they were not fully involved in the negotiations regarding what they get and what they have been offered. So with the customary lease system, the customary landowners, they'll be fully involved in negotiating what they get.
JB: So how's this practically going to work? We understand the (projects on the) SABLs are still operating, they're not actually being removed for having fraudulently obtained leases.
EE: Yeah. Anyway, currently SABLs are still operating until such a time when guidelines are developed so the lease can be used in the marginal SABLs. So for now it still operates. What the prime minister mentioned on Monday (7 November), it was an announcement, but there still needs to be guidelines developed to dismantle SABLs and convert them to customary leases. That will be the next step.
JB: Who will do that? Who will develop this mechanism?
EE: The government agency in charge of Lands has the power to do that.
JB: And you would trust them to do that?
EE: Ah, well... the policy makers are there so they have to do that. But the next step now is to develop guidelines to do so, to follow the decision.
