The debate over who really owns land in Sierra Leone has heated up again.
It started after Lands Minister Dr. Turad Senessie and lawyer Chukwuemeka Taylor gave different explanations on AYV’s State of the Nation program.
Minister Senessie said all land in Sierra Leone belongs to the state, and government is only managing it for the people.
He said the papers most people have m, like survey plan and conveyance, are not enough to prove you really own the land. He said a conveyance is just a paper showing that one person sold land to another person, but it is not the real legal title.
“The land called Sierra Leone belongs to the state, and the government of the day exercises authority over that state on behalf of its people,” he said.
He admitted that Sierra Leone has never had a proper system to register land and give title certificates since independence. He said that is what government wants to fix now.
In fact, at a press conference on September 8 at Miatta Conference Centre, the Minister said a new law has already been approved by Cabinet and will go to Parliament. Once passed, every land owner will have to register their land and collect a proper title certificate. He said this will help stop land grabbing and help people use their land to get big loans from banks.
But lawyer Chukwuemeka Taylor disagreed with the Minister’s claim that all land belongs to state.
He said if that was true, why would the law talk about government “acquiring” land from people and paying them compensation? According to the State Lands Act of 1960, government has to acquire land because it does not automatically own it.
Taylor said people can have different rights over land, and just because your land is not registered yet does not mean you don’t own it.
For now, the argument has left many Sierra Leoneans confused and asking: If I buy land and I have conveyance, am I really the owner or not?
And that is exactly the question the new land law will have to answer when it reaches Parliament.
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