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decreased each year according to the rate of increase in a price index, until the next formal
revaluation.
5. Define the rights of leaseholders in the event of unilateral lease
cancellation.
The present government has made it fairly clear that it intends to continue the position that
it is the ultimate "owner" of land in the state leasehold sector. One reason given by senior officials
is that the government has, and should have, the right of a landlord to cancel a lease under certain
circumstances. Freehold ownership is not very different: government can still take land held in
freehold ownership, but legal systems are usually very clear in stating that the affected owner has the
right to full compensation at market value, paid before the land is taken away from its former owner.
It would seem appropriate to enact a law providing that in the event that government cancels a lease
before its expiration, the lessee should have the same right to full, prior, compensation for the value
of improvements made by the lessee. This would then be a curb on unreasonable, arbitrary, or corrupt
acts by functionaries. Enactment of such a law would be a valuable first step in the needed revision
of the Land Acquisition Act, but it need not await that much lengthier process.
6. Provide for reversion between the state and traditional authorities if
land transferred is not in fact developed as promised.
There are reported instances in which chiefs complained that they had assented to the transfer
of land to the State based on promises by applicants to make investments and create jobs for the local
people, but years later no investments had been made and no jobs created. They later learned that
government transferred that land to politicians who were planning a different use for it. Just as the
government reserves the right to cancel a lease if investments are not made in the land, perhaps the
traditional chiefs should be allowed to write enforceable contracts specifying that if specific conditions
in the application are not fulfilled, then the land would revert to the chief's control.
7. Consider declaring customary authorities to be the municipal
governments in rural areas (the Peruvian model).
Zambia now has two major sectors of landholdings and two sets of authorities governing land
matters: the state and the traditional sectors. It has been proposed that all of Zambia should be
considered one sector, with agencies of the government taking over land-related responsibilities. An
alternative, invented in Peru in 1970, is to endow the customary authorities with the same legal
powers that towns and cities have concerning land matters. This achieves the goal of having similar
procedures in both sectors, although (at least in the Peruvian model) the central government respects
the existing or traditional forms by which the traditional sector chooses its executive (the chiefs and
headmen), rather than imposing a European style of election of authorities. Government may wish to
study this variant on the suggestion of extending councils to cover the entire country.
8. Consider extending the concept of rates to include all land allocations
as a tax base for local or customary authority budgets.
Present law applies urban rates only to the value of improvements, and only to the value of
improvements within the so-called rateable areas of cities, towns, and councils. Taxing only
improvements encourages speculative holding of valuable land with minimal improvements, which is