Farm prices too high - McLeod-Katjirua

The Khomas regional council is unable to meet the high demand for agricultural land, due to escalating farm prices and limited financial resources. Governor Laura McLeod-Katjirua said during her State of the Region Address (SORA) last week the council is unable to pay the prices for farms in the region, and is therefore unable to acquire sufficient agricultural land to meet the high demand. “Apart from the willing buyer, willing seller principle, government might need to explore other avenues provided for in the law,” McLeod-Katjirua said.She said during the period April 2017 to March 2018, a total of 17 farms were advertised and processed by the Khomas regional council's division of lands, under the national resettlement programme, with a total of 31 farming units. McLeod-Katjirua further said that illegal squatting on state and private land as, well as land grabbing remains a serious concern. “People in this region are seriously warned to desist from and avoid by all means grabbing state, municipal or any other private land.”She said Khomas is still haunted by the issue of land disputes and land grabbing remains a serious concern in the region. McLeod-Katjirua said plans to construct toilets in several parts of the region were interrupted due to land issues. Speaking about sanitation, she said contractors are busy with the construction of toilets in Windhoek Rural constituency, as part of the Harambee Prosperity Plan. To date, council has successfully constructed 105 toilets at the Audabib, Kanubeb, Noasport and Dordabis localities. According to McLeod-Katjirua, contractors are appointed for Farm Versailles and Stink Water to construct a total of 72 toilets in the two localities. She said the Khomas council had planned to construct 223 such toilets. However, this could not happen due to continuous land issues, and in the end, they could only start construction during the 2018/19 financial year and had to reduce the number from 223 to 185 toilets.“As it happens elsewhere in this region, the land issue still haunts us as. In some instances we had to pull offsite, due to land disputes.”According to McLeod-Katjirua, at Khanubeb they could not finish constructing 38 toilets, due to the same problem, and had to relocate to other sites. However, the first 27 units are planned to be handed over at Aubabib. The total budget for the programme was N$2.3 million, of which N$1.4 million has been spent. ELLANIE SMIT

Farm prices too high - McLeod-Katjirua

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-04

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Farm prices too high - McLeod-Katjirua

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-04

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