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in breach of any of the covenants in the lease. The file is sent to the Valuation Department in the
Housing Conglomerate for assessment of the "unexhausted value of improvements." A property
transfer tax of 5 percent of the value must be paid. The commissioner will grant consent if the
applicant has fulfilled these conditions. The process may take five weeks to one year. The onus of
registering the transaction is on the parties to the transaction.
Consents are similarly required for subleasing, mortgaging, and subdividing leaseholds. The
consent fee for subleasing is K2,000, for mortgaging K500, and for subdividing K5,000 (1993 rates).
The process is the same, except that in the case of a subdivision the applicant must provide an
approved sketch plan showing the proposed subdivisions. In the case of a subdivision, the onus is on
the individuals to get the proposed subdivisions numbered and surveyed by the surveyor general.
In general, the processes for consents are fairly straightforward. Rather, the issue is why they
are needed at all, except perhaps as a means of collecting ground rents and the property transfer tax.
If land values were recognized and self-declaration of the consideration used as the basis for a property
transfer tax, the declared price could by law be made the base for compensation in case of a taking
by the government, and underreporting would cease to be a major problem.
The basic problems lie in the process for initial grants of lease. No one step seems to take an
unreasonable amount of time, yet in the field, one regularly hears stories of files that have been sent
to Lusaka and then nothing heard for years. The various parts of the MOL tend to blame one another
for delays, and the ministry as a whole emphasizes the delays that occur before the application even
reaches the ministry and the delays caused by reliance on staff from other ministries or the
municipalities. The process usually goes well enough so long as all is in order, but once a mistake is
noted and the case moves back down through the system, it often goes into administrative limbo. It
was estimated a few years ago that there are between 25,000 and 50,000 applications pending, some
from many years ago (ODA 1989).
IV. Overcentralization and overarticulation
The leasehold system is too centralized, and the procedures for leasing reviewed above involve
far too many separate stages and decision-makers. Each step in and of itself is not very time
consuming, but at each stage there are possibilities for delay caused by backlog of work, absence of
officials, clerical error, or any number of other reasons. The process emphasizes precise compliance
with all requirements, and so it is not uncommon for files to be sent back down the chain to remedy
errors and omissions. Once confusion develops in this many-staged process, it is very difficult to
resolve. Troubled cases cycle up and down in the system, fraught with misunderstanding of what is
required, and very substantial amounts of time must be devoted to them over several years before they
are finally resolved.
Part of the answer lies in decentralization. When applicants can come to the office in the
Lands Department where their papers are being processed, confusion can more readily be resolved
than through an exchange of documents through the mail. Though it is not in theory necessary, those
seeking action by the ministry very often have to follow up in person. Proximity to the client is an
important factor and reduces follow-up costs to the client. These considerations also apply to some
extent, though less forcefully, to the work of the Land and Deeds Registry. For the Department of