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request, during a specific period each year. The fund retains the services of a well-established private
valuation surveyor for this purpose.
B. Impact of the "Watershed Speech"
In 1975 former president Kenneth Kaunda announced a sweeping new land policy. Blaming
real estate brokers and land speculators for recent increases in the market value of land, he announced
that since land was a gift of God it should not have market value. An obliging parliament quickly
passed a law that canceled all existing freehold titles, replacing them with 99-year leaseholds. All land
was nationalized, with responsibility for its management vested in the president. Anyone needing State
Land for any acceptable purpose from that point forward had to request it of the Commissioner of
Lands who would study the request and sign a lease on behalf of the president. Real estate agencies
quickly took down their signs and vanished from the commercial telephone directories. From 1975
on, no land transactions were allowed without state consent. Maximum prices charged and paid were
fixed by the state. Sellers could not legally ask, nor the buyer agree to pay, prices higher than those
fixed. The law further stipulated that prices fixed by the state for private transactions could not be
questioned in "court of law or tribunal." In practice, for the first few years after 1975, the GVD,
which was responsible for fixing prices, was swamped with requests; it often took six to twelve
months before a transfer could be assigned a price and completed.
Enforceability of the Conversion Act of 1975 depended largely on whether the documents were
to be registered. The Lands and Deeds Registry Act, 1914, SeCtiOn 4, required registration for all
transfers of land or interests in land, if for more than one year. This reportedly led many parties to
sign leases for one day less than a year, and thus there was no need to officially decree a price or rent.
Estate agents themselves practically disappeared in 1975. Some emerged as surveyors, as the
president had not blamed mapmakers for rising real estate prices. A new specialty arose: valuation
surveyor, who specialized in studying and determining what improvements were worth. In 1990, the
official 1991 budget speech lifted the ban on estate agency and announced that the Zambian economy
would be liberalized. The Surveyors Institute of Zambia promptly held two seminars in 1991, at which
speakers urged formulating professional guidelines for estate agency, speeding up the land delivery
system, returning to freehold land tenure, and removing section 12 of the Conversion Act (the
requirement that no real estate be transferred without state consent). The transfer process has been
accelerated somewhat by an administrative decision: the present Commissioner of Lands has begun
granting consent automatically where a professional valuation report is attached or when satisfied that
the amount declared as the transfer price is reasonable. However, there is no assurance that this
simplified procedure will be permanent.
The presidential edict also forced landowners to become leaseholders instead. Freehold titles
were ipso facto converted into leaseholds by law. This would not have mattered greatly if possession
were secure for the stated term of 99 years. However, an important corollary of the "land has no
value" doctrine was the belief that the president, as landlord, could arbitrarily and unilaterally revoke
a lease if the lessee was not "using" the land productively. Anyone holding land for future
construction had reason to feel vulnerable. Instead of the boom in construction activity that might have
been expected, holders of vacant lots and farmland tried to keep a low profile.
Land still had value, especially for location, but persons wanting to buy and sell had to go
through new rituals. A would-be buyer had to find land whose holder wanted to sell. This was not as