Dr. Ousman Gajigo, Economist Formerly with ADB
By Dr. Ousman Gajigo
A few weeks ago, the country was treated to news about questionable land allocations in the Kamalo area and the government’s response to it. Kamalo is the area of land just after Old Jeshwang, on the way to Banjul. That episode is yet another illustration of the terrible state of land administration in the country. What officials were trying to portray as a correction of bad actions was actually nothing but charade.
Mr. Hamat Bah, the Minister of Lands, made a big show of forming a task force. This task force apparently came up with some recommendations for action, which was announced to the media with much fanfare. This script from Minister Bah is a familiar one. It is identical to what he did concerning thedubious land allocations that occurred in an area of Cape Point in Bakau.
In both the Cape Point and Kamala episodes, the nation was simply treated to a theatrical performance instead of serious actions to tackle an issue of immense national importance. Even this pretense was forced upon the government because it became undeniably clear that malpractices had occurred and these could no longer be covered up or ignored.
In the case of Cape Point, the allocations of a few plots were revoked. In the case of Kamalo, another handful of plots were revoked out of a large number of mysterious allocations. It is worthwhile to note that most of the initial allocations remained – so the announced revocations were purely for show. Moreover, no in-depth investigations were taken and no officials that abetted such improper allocations were held accountable.
If this government really recognized that the country has a bad system of land administration, and is serious about addressing it, the actions we would have seen would be quite different from the staged performance put before the nation by Minister HamatBah. This government has been in power for 8 years. Why have they been sleeping at the wheels?
A government that is serious about land administration would approach our current land problems differently. In The Gambia today, basic and fundamental issues about land administrationremain such as secure ownership, urban planning, property tax management, public lands reserves, improved land dispute resolution mechanisms and environmental safeguards, among others.
Land administration is fundamental to every single sector in the economy. Whether one is talking about infrastructure development, urban planning, housing, education, health, hospitality sector, industries and a range of other sectors, their proper implementation would be lacking if the issue of land is not addressed.
More than most countries in Africa, the need for proper land administration is particularly acute in The Gambia due to urban pressures on land. This is because the growth of urban population in The Gambia has been very rapid. In 1990, less than 40% of the Gambian population lived in urban areas. Currently, currently, over 65% of the population lives in urban areas. This rapid urbanization rate resulted in some previously rural areas finding themselves in the middle of urban settlements within a generation.
To put it differently, the urban population in The Gambia is currently growing at a rate of 4% per year. Between 2010 and 2019, the total urban population increased by almost 500,000people. Projecting from the historical trends, each additional year would see an extra 75,000 people on average moving into urban areas between now and 2029. And most of this increase would be happening in the Greater Banjul area, particularly in Kombo North, Kombo South and Kombo Central.
As this urban population explodes and settlements get built up overnight without any planning, increased pressures on land will exacerbate conflicts over this increasingly scarce resource. Land areas that were previously considered degraded are being settled without any controls. For example, the swampy areas of Talinding that no one could have imagined anyone living there a generation ago are completely occupied. What had previously been a run-off stream snaking its way from Abuko, through Bundung, London Corner and Kotu is almost completely lost of encroachment.
The unorganized and unguided spread of these settlements isreflected in the fact that necessary infrastructure such as major roads, drainage systems and sewage systems were never even considered, much more built. Hence, the increasing frequency of floods whenever rainfall gets slightly above normal. Land is being allocated in the Tourism Development Area (TDA) where the wrong considerations being prioritized. Foreign investors are being allocated with significant tracks of agricultural land outside of any framework, and in completely non-transparent process.
Another major casualty of the poor land administration has been environmental degradation through encroachment. There is an argument that environmental degradation as a direct result of government encroaching on previously protected land is even more prevalent under the Adama Barrow administration than under the Yahya Jammeh regime. Take for instance the allocation of several hectares of land at the Salagie forest park to a politically connected friend of the president. Areas such as Kotu Wetlands that were never touched even during the darkest years of the Yahya Jammeh administration are now being allocated away in secret.
This haphazard process of land allocations and management makes future infrastructural developments extremely difficult even when the technical capacity, the political will and capital becomes available. After all, if the creation of a 50km highway requires resettling thousands of households, the project cost could easily be doubled or more.
In the midst of this current crisis, Minister Hamat Bah has announced that a land policy document is being drafted. If you are tempted to consider that as a piece of good news, I’m sorry to dampen your expectations. The challenge in The Gambia – whether today or in the past – has never been about drafting well-written sector policy or strategy documents. The key challenge remains effective implementation. And in order to implement effectively, a government requires competent high-level officials with integrity to execute plans. To understand why this particular ingredient is missing in the Adama Barrow administration, please consider the past and current ministers of land.
Minister Hamat Bah was preceded Minister Musa Drammeh as the Minister of Land. In Drammeh’s tenure, he confused his role as a minister with that of a land broker and a land baron. He seemed more preoccupied with selling public lands than ensuring that a proper land administration was in place. He has now been transferred to the Ministry of Fisheries where his gross incompetence and lack of any strategic vision remain on full display.
Minister Drammeh has been replaced by Mr. Hamat Bah. It is difficult to do a serious analysis of Hamas Bah’s tenure because the man is the very embodiment of lack of seriousness. Minister Bah, who previously served as the Minister of Tourism, left that ministry under a series of controversies. The thought of such a high-level official being entrusted with the highly important land portfolio in the country tells us all one needs to know about thelikelihood of effective implementation of the new land policy, irrespective of how well prepared it is.
Like all other sector policy documents, the preparation of theproposed land policy will undergo a highly predictable and ritualized set of activities where the mere observance of process is elevated over substance. The policy document will itself be drafted by a consultant, with very little input from high-level officials. When a draft is circulated for inputs from senior officials, there will be almost none. A consultation workshop (sometimes more than one) will be held at a local hotel, which will be well attended because it will essentially serve as an off-day from work.
The consultant will revise document, but this new version will hardly be different from the earlier draft because substantive comments from officials will not be received. A final validation workshop will be arranged and will also be well attended since there will be refreshments and no work requirement. The cabinet will approve this document at some point but neither President Barrow nor any of the other ministers will understand what the document says or what its implications are for the other strategic sectors of the country. Thereafter, this document will join earlier generations of sector policy documents in a neglected file cabinet to be coated in dust, and never to be consulted again.Activities in the sector will proceed as before as if a land policy had never been drafted.
With this current government in place, the poor planning and the absence of proper land administration will not only continue but is bound to get worse. It will get worse principally because of the poor caliber of ministers that are being put in charge of thisimportant portfolio. But the ultimate responsibility of the sector failure lies not with those ministers but with the president who appointed them and is incapable of holding them accountable.