Farms with poor labour relations might be expropriated

Namibian farmers have reacted strongly to the government's suggestion that it might target farms with a record of poor labour relations for expropriation. In a statement sent to the Windhoek-based The Namibian daily newspaper on Monday, the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, while spelling out the criteria for expropriation, said that "aspects of eviction and dumping of labourers, though not a criterion to expropriate a farm", could be considered "because of the social aspect such action poses to the Namibian people". Namibia's labour federation, the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW), had called for farms with poor labour relations to be targeted for expropriation. The February call by the union came after government's announcement that, frustrated by the slow pace of transfer of commercial farmland from white to black farmers, it was going to expropriate land. The expropriation policy would run concurrently with the existing "willing-buyer, willing-seller" approach. "The government should separate the land issue from that of labour relations - it has no legal basis to mix the two. There are instances of labour abuse, which should be dealt with under the labour legislation. We have committed ourselves to cooperation with the government on its expropriation policy, but it [the government] cannot mix it with labour," Jan de Wet, president of the Namibian Agriculture Union, told IRIN. De Wet said his union had also committed itself to improving the lot of farm workers, including measures such as the provision of old age pensions. However, Robin Sherbourne, the Director of Public Policy Analysis at the Windhoek-based Institute for Public Policy Research, said the government could legally expropriate land "in the public interest", which was broad enough to include a particular farmer's record of labour relations, "but this has not been tested in court. Should the government pursue this method of expropriation, it could end up being involved in a lengthy and expensive legal battle". Ideally, land should be separated from land tenure issues, "but since farm workers live on farms, it is quite complicated", Sherbourne said, and the government was probably trying to appease the labour federation. The ministry's statement also included "excessive land and under-utilised land" as other categories targeted for expropriation. Since coming to power in 1990, the government has resettled only 37,434 people. It says it needs to resettle 243,000 people in the next five years. According to The Namibian, some statistics indicated that about 4,000 white farmers owned nearly 80 percent of the 38 million hectares of commercial farmland in Namibia. The statement was issued by the ministry in response to an article published in The Namibian, which highlighted the concerns of German businesses that were delaying investments because they feared "Zimbabwe-style land reform" in Namibia. The ministry's spokesman, Chrispin Matongela, told IRIN that the government would release more details on the expropriation policy soon.