| Abstract: | This article reviews the legal framework regulating landholding and land utilization in Zambia. It opens with a historical account of the evolution of land policy since independence in 1964. It deals with the land reforms introduced by the first postcolonial government of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), notably the Land (Conversion of Titles) Act, 1975, which enabled the government to control land by restricting the right of the statutory lessee to deal with his land and by making the consent of the President mandatory to any such transaction. The Act also empowered the government to restrict the size of individual agricultural holdings. The Act had numerous defects: there were no criteria for determining prices, there was no appellate system, there were no enforcement provisions, and there were serious administrative delays in processing applications for presidential consent. These problems have been satisfactorily addressed under the current reforms introduced by the government of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) through the Land Act of 1995. The Act's scope of application and provisions pertaining to vesting of land, power of alienation, conferment of value, scope of land control, and the machinery for redress of grievances through the Lands Tribunal are discussed. While it is too early to assess the Act's impact, it clearly constitutes a reasonable legal framework conducive to development. Notes, ref. (Extended version published in: Zambia Law Journal, spec. ed. (1998), p. 79-102.) |
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