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III. State leasehold process
The process of getting an initial lease of land from the ministry is set out in the ministry's
circular No. 1 (see p. 21). The circular is a set of instructions addressed to all provincial permanent
secretaries and district executive secretaries. It includes the forms to be used in applying for land and
imposes certain important limitations. There is a basic pattern which is common regardless of the
location of the land, but details differ.
For Trust and Reserve Lands, the applicant for a lease begins with the local headman and
chief in whose territory the land is located. The State Land and Reserves Orders, SeCtiOn 6A(1), and
the Trust Land Orders, SECTION 5(2), require that the president consult local authorities before
granting a lease or a license in their area. The circular requires that the chief consent to a lease and
that the lease be considered by the appropriate subcommittee of the rural council and then approved
by a meeting of the full council. In the case of a resident villager, there is no need for the headman
to identify his land, only to review the lease application.
For a stranger or nonvillager seeking land, the process begins with the headman of a particular
village (there may be a dozen or many more in a chiefs area) who receives the application for land
under a lease.' Applicants seeking land may go to a particular headman because they have friends
there or someone (e.g., a district agricultural officer) indicates the village has good land available.
After discussion in the village, if inclined to recommend the land and lease, the headman takes the
applicant to meet the chief. There may be 2-5 chiefs in a district. After discussion with council, the
chief may give consent to the application. This usually takes the form of a simple letter to the local
council.
Before the application can be presented to the council, however, there must be a sketch plan
of the land for which application is made. This will generally be done by an agricultural assistant from
the Ministry of Agriculture's Land Use Planning Office, who usually comes from the provincial office
for this purpose. The assistant has access to a 1:50,000 topographic map, on which the applicant
locates the land. The assistant then visits the parcel, verifies the location, and clears a 2-4 meter swath
around the boundary. Sometimes this is done in the presence of the headman, at other times in his or
her absence. This is a critical step in making sure everyone understands which land and how much
is involved. A sketch map is prepared at the office based on the field visit and the topographic map
base. The applicant will have the sketch plan signed by the chief. Until recently, the Ministry of
Agriculture provided this service for free but now has begun to charge for its services.
In the case of settlement schemes on Trust and Reserve Lands, the land for the entire
settlement is obtained from the chief at the outset. The chief is not involved in the process further,
nor in subsequent leases to the settlers. The parcels are demarcated and assigned to the settlers. At
the end of a two- or three-year probationary period they can apply for leases to the Commissioner of
Lands through the council.
In the case of any State Land, there is no need for a chiefs consent. It is the municipal survey
officer who will do the sketch map, or failing such an officer, a staffer from Town and Country
As indicated in chapter 5, either the headman or the chief may be responsible for allocating land, depending on the
region. Hence in certain instances the application process may start with the chief.