Ownership of land and economic growth, at what cost?
Msale, Clara Kweka
Tanzania, like many developing countries in Africa, has undergone political and socioeconomic changes in the past two/three decades termed as trade liberalization and privatization. These changes have greatly affected land administration and good governance from the context of government housing privatization. In Tanzania, the central government had been providing accommodation to its employees especially the high rank officials. In year 2002, the government decided to sell these houses to sitting tenants as a way of boosting the morale of government employees and reducing the burden of maintenance cost and other running costs (among others). Employees were given title deeds after one has made final payments, which was between 6months to 20 years. Title deeds empowered the owners to do renovations, extensions and reconstructions to their new properties. It has facilitated change of use to commercialization such as bar and restaurants, hair saloons and grocery shops. Also from single to multi-storey structures, additional buildings were/are being erected for leasing purposes. However, the on-going activities have expanded so fast that they have overlooked plot-ratio by more than 100%, have ignored service provision such as water, sewerage and solid waste management. The area has insufficient water, there are sewerage and solidwaste disposal problems due to uncoordinated and mushrooming development. For a long time the authorities (government building agency and local municipal) have been debating on whose control ends where, there was lack of transparency and therefore accountability. At the moment, the local authority has been managed to cope with land development and promote sustainable and environmentallyfriendly built up settlement.
Event: XXX FIG Working Week and General Assembly : Strategic Integration of Surveying Services
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