KEYNOTE ADDRESS TO BE DELIVERED BY
HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT,
ALHAJI DR. AHMAD TEJAN KABBAH
AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE NATIONAL LAND POLICY WORKSHOP
AT THE MIATTA CONFERENCE CENTRE, FREETOWN
ON MONDAY 16TH AUGUST, 2004

Mr. Chairman,
Honourable Vice-President,
Ministers of Government,
Hon. Members of Parliament,
His Worshipful, the Mayor, Freetown City Council,
Paramount Chiefs,
Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corp,
Heads of Government Departments and Local Government,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

1. I am indeed very pleased and highly honoured to deliver the keynote address at this important ceremony which will trigger the process of formal discussions on the reform of the management and administration of land in our country, a very precious national resource.

2. Mr. Chairman, Distinguished guests, today as we take the first step to formulate a very important instrument to ensure proper management and administration of land for sustainable development in Sierra Leone, I wish on behalf of you all to congratulate the Minister and staff of the Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment for this initiative.

3. We are all aware that we are struggling together to rebuild our shattered nation after a decade of rebel war which among other things resulted in unplanned population shifts. In particular, many people moved from the rural areas to urban centres in search of relative Security. As a result enormous pressure was placed on the existing shelter and other facilities, thereby giving rise to hardship and inconvenience to the population.

4. Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen, over the years there has been little or no land-use planning. As a result, land management issues account for about 75% of conflicts and litigations all over the country. My Government is gravely concerned about this state of affairs and is determined to ensure the peaceful, proper management, conservation, sustainable and orderly utilization of land, throughout the country.

5. Land, as we know, is extremely useful to the development of any country. It is for this reason that we have decided to embark on the preparation of a well-formulated plan and strategy for its implementation. This will involve land management, merging land types and land uses in the most rational way possible, so as to derive maximum benefit from the land and satisfy the diverse needs of our society while at the same time conserving our fragile ecosystems.

6. Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, let us bear in mind that our basic needs for food, water, fuel, clothing and shelter are met largely from the use of land, which is a finite commodity. As our population and development activities increase, so will the demand for land for housing, construction of office buildings and other facilities that future governments would need for the governance of the country. Therefore, in order to avoid greater conflicts between competing land uses and between the interests of individual land users and the common good, it is paramount to now put in place an effective land use management policy and legislation.

7. Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, please note that history is full of examples of cultures that have prospered as a result of sustainable land use management. The way people cultivate their land has always been a decisive factor for economic success. Proper management and fair distribution of land will promote gender equity, empowerment of women, eradication of extreme poverty, and the attainment of food security which is the cornerstone of our agricultural development policy.

8. Therefore, when the Minister of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment told me that his Ministry has produced a draft National Lands Policy document, I felt extremely pleased because I believe that we are now moving away from a situation where land disputes occasionally led to violent attacks and deaths, to an era where everyone will use a more transparent system of laid-down rules for the proper management and distribution of land. I also believe that this system will make land more accessible to those who need it and will also address some of the fundamental challenges associated with land. These problems include general indiscipline in the land market, characterized by land encroachments, falsification of documents, multiple land sales and registrations, unauthorized use of the land, haphazard development, improper survey practices, indeterminate local authority and chiefdom boundaries, resulting from lack of reliable maps and plans, rampant encroachment on, and illegal acquisition of large tracts of Government land which have either not been surveyed, registered and otherwise protected, or have not been utilized; a weak land administration system and conflicting land uses, such as, the activities of mining which lead to erosion and destruction of productive farm land and farming which is the mainstay of the rural economy.

9. Government is therefore committed to adopt a participatory approach in handling this issue. We are taking on board all the stakeholders - farmers, Paramount Chiefs, District/Town Council representatives, the Private Sector, land owners, NGOs, etc This is a very good opportunity for all of us to come together, once and for all, to chart the way forward for the proper management of our land.

10. Land-use planning starts from policy formulation, which means the systematic assessment of physical, social and economic factors in such a way as to assist and encourage land users to select land-use options that increase their productivity, sustainability and meet the needs of our society. Farmers and other land users should take an active part in Land Management Policy formulation, bringing to bear their special knowledge of problems, constraints and needs for improvement, thereby justifying the presence of all key stakeholders in this workshop, particularly the Paramount chiefs. It is my strong view that the findings of this workshop should be discussed at the provincial level to allow grass-root stakeholders to contribute to the process. This will ensure that your final recommendations would embody the views of all stakeholders.

11. In order to make our initiatives meaningful and beneficial to the people of this country, I am appealing to all of us, especially the major stakeholders who are participating in this workshop to make maximum contribution to the successful formulation and implementation of this policy.

12. Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you fruitful deliberations during the technical sessions and I am confident that this official opening will mark the beginning of a very fruitful Public/Private Sector interface in the handling of land issues as the appropriate policy and decision makers are now given the opportunity to make maximum input to the formulation of a policy for land utilization in Sierra Leone. I now urge all stakeholders in the technical sessions to consider the views and expressed needs of our people and integrate them into our overall national aspirations for a peaceful and prosperous nation.

13. Regarding large-scale commercial investment in agriculture, you will recall that in my address during the inauguration of newly elected Paramount Chiefs on the 26th of January 2003, I dealt at length with the issue of customary land tenure system in the Provinces. Specifically, I stated that this system need not constitute a hindrance to long-term investment in the land. On the contrary, we can devise a proactive system whereby provincial lands can be usefully employed to bring realistic development of agriculture in the provincial areas.

14. A prospective investor wishing to invest in agriculture, may, for instance enter into a joint venture or lease arrangement with a land-owning family whereby the share of the investment on the part of the land owners would be the land itself with a notional value put on it which they would make available while the prospective investor's share would be the machines and other inputs also properly valued. The profits realized from the enterprise can be distributed in accordance with the values placed on the respective contributions to the capital of the joint venture.

15. Any length of time may be prescribed for the duration of the joint venture. This will be a binding contractual arrangement between the parties and it should be valid even for attracting bank loans as in the case of other business ventures, as landed property of the entire enterprise can be used as collateral for such loans. Refinements on such arrangements could be made while we maintain the present land tenure system in the Provinces intact and still bring development to the provinces through the use of provincial lands.
16. A case in point is the Magbass Sugar Enterprise run by a private Chinese Company. The people of Kholifa Chiefdom, represented by the Paramount Chief and local authorities, entered into a binding arrangement with the Chinese Company whereby the former provided thousands of acres of land on a lease basis and the Chinese provided capital investment for the sugar enterprise. This arrangement satisfies the need not to disenfranchise the owners of the land and at the same time, provides a good investment opportunity for outside entrepreneurs.

17. Since I delivered my statement during the inauguration of newly elected Paramount Chiefs, the Law Reform Commission has completed proposals for a new legislation, which will make provision for equal access to land anywhere in Sierra Leone for all Sierra Leoneans and facilitate the commercial use of land. The most interesting innovation of the proposals are first, the abolition of the classification of Sierra Leoneans into natives and non-natives, (as you know the SLPP is committed to the policy of one country, one people), second, the creation of a Lands Commission in which will be vested all state lands and real property both in the Western area and the Provinces as trustee to administer the properties on behalf of the government. The composition of the proposed Lands Commission will include Paramount Chiefs, lawyers, private property owners and others. This would insulate the administration of state lands from party politics and facilitate the use of land for private sector investment, third, the Law Reform Commission also proposes that until land registration comes into effect in the provinces, Chiefdom Councils should keep a register of heads of land-owning families, and finally, the creation of a land user category, which would divide land according to the most suitable use which could be made of it. I am informed that the proposed legislation would provide an appropriate legal framework for the implementation of the land use policies that may emerge from your workshop. You should therefore work closely with the Commission in the deliberations of the workshop.

18. I strongly suggest that the agenda of the Workshop could, time permitting, be extended to consider ideas for the preparation of guidelines for the development of Master Town Plans. Such guidelines could revisit the Master Town Plan of Freetown prepared some years ago. Work can be started initially for the development of Master Town Plans for the Provincial headquarter towns of Bo, Kenema and Makeni. The work can be extended at a later time, to all major urban centers in our country.

19. With these few remarks, it is now my singular pleasure to formally declare open this workshop on a National Land Policy.

Thank you for your attention.

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