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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Planned development in Tanzania: the twilight zone
Author:Gondwe, Zebron Steven
Year:1991
Periodical:Lesotho Law Journal: A Journal of Law and Development (ISSN 0255-6472)
Volume:7
Issue:2
Pages:187-205
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:Tanzania
East Africa
Subjects:land law
law
land tenure
legislation
Right of property
Abstract:Land tenure on mainland Tanzania is primarily regulated by the Land Ordinance, 1923. At independence, the new government had no qualms about retaining the Land Ordinance, apparently because it declared all lands of the territory, whether occupied or unoccupied, to be 'public land'. The retention of the Land Ordinance has left intact a dual tenure in which the granted right of occupancy is clearly superior to the deemed right of occupancy; a system in which a granted right of occupancy essentially remains public land and disposable by the President; a system in which planned development tends to assume the acquisition of deemed right(s) of occupancy, rather than the re-development of granted right(s) of occupancy. The Planning Ordinance, too, predates independence and gives no guidance as to whether a deemed right of occupancy can be held subject to modern development conditions. This twilight zone in planning law and land law was recently addressed, albeit indirectly, by the Court of Appeal of Tanzania in the case of Methoselah Paul Nyagwasa v. Christopher Mbote Nyirabu (1985). The author concludes that at the time both the Land Ordinance and the Planning Ordinance facilitated the dispossession of Africans in favour of non-Africans and were part of the legal infrastructure necessary for the realization of colonial economic policy. He wonders in whose favour postindependence dispossession of Africans is being effected. Ref.
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