EXPOSED! ANADKAT LEADS ASIANS COMMUNITY, TEA AND SUGAR ESTATES OWNERS IN SMEAR CAMPAIGN TO FRUSTRATE LAND AMENDMENTS BILLS

BY SALOME KANJIRA

There was drama at the Economic Association of Malawi(ECAMA) Land management and reforms roundtable discussion held at Capital Hotel in Lilongwe when First Capital Bank owner Hitesh Anadkat tried to control the proceedings in an attempt to a launch a campaign to discredit the land amendments bills of 2022 set to be presented in this budget sitting of parliament.

This is aimed at protecting their interests to cling on to all the prime and arable land in Malawi.

Anadkat interrupted the proceedings by asking the moderator why the meeting was not discussing the land law reform. This was an indirect reference to the land amendments bills that the current Attorney General(AG) Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda is championing.
“Mr. Moderator the invitation letters we received said the discussion will centre on land reforms, now from the program and panelists I don’t see that,” Anadakat queried.
This in reaction to a powerful presentation by the Associate Professor Diamon Kambewa from the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) that hit where it pained most.

Apparently, Anadkat and his team comprising Asians of Malawian origins and Estate owners that made three quarters of the participants to the discussion were not happy to be told in the face that Malawians are not benefiting from their own land.

Kambewa put it in simple language that agricultural contribution to the growth domestic product (GDP)has been diminishing since 1964 despite that the estates are holding on to huge pieces of land.
“We need a law that should stop the selling of customary land since. Malawi is losing a lot of land to freehold and leasehold soon we will be citizens without land if there is no law to protect the indigenous,” said Kambewa.

In script kind of, the immediate past AG Chiskosa Silungwe came to the rescue of the moderator Mathews Malata to assure Anadkat that the “land reforms will be taken care of in his presentation”.

Silungwe stunned many after he told the meeting that there is nothing like customary land in Malawi adding the country has only “public and private land tenure system”.
As if this was not enough, Silungwe described the 2016 Customary Land Act as “a political comprises attempt that seeks to create the impression that customary land exists in Malawi”.

Silungwe further told the meeting that parliament should not amend the 2016 land act.
According to the proposed amendment government will revoke all the idle freehold land.
“Taking land in the freehold without compensation is a nonstarter. In fact, parliament should not even amend the act because consultations were not made and secondly, the drafting is shoddy” said Silungwe attracting applause from Anadkat and his team.

At this stage it was clear that the former AG is out to discredit his successor Nyirenda.
Further one would be safe to conclude that he has been hired by the Asians and Estate owners to discredit the amendments which have already earned the President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera administration praises from the rights land rights advocates.

If Silungwe was sincere he could not have described the bills that are already in circulation as ‘shoddy’!

However, Parliamentary committee Chairperson on Natural resources and environment Werani Chirenga told the gathering that this time they will not accept anything that passes for bulldoze neither invisible hands to mess up the bills that are done in the best interest of the people.

“This time around we are doing away with freehold land we will ensure that we as representatives of the people serve the interests of the voters by passing bills that protect their rights to own the land’’ said Chirenga.

Taking his turn, Anadkat warned that the amendments will affect the land value that was used as collateral to obtain loans. He deliberately forgot that while he is worried about loans, millions of Malawians do not have even a piece of land to construct a house.
“The proposed amendments will affect the banking sector at the same time poses a threat to some of us, for example, I have a piece of land in Nyambadwe am keeping for my children who are in UK, now it means I risk losing that land because of this amendments’’ he said.

It is from his own words that one can safely conclude that Anadkat and team have teamed up with Silungwe to protect their selfish interests at the expense of millions of landless people in Malawi.

But in his closing remarks, Parliamentary committee on Agriculture chairperson Sammer Suleman said there is no evidence that people in areas where there are both the tea and sugar estates are benefiting.
“It does not make sense that 70 percent of the land in Thyolo belongs to the estates when every year we are told that tea is not doing well on the market again it is cheaper today to import sugar from Brazil that the local one, now why should these people still keep the land?’’ said Suleman.

Gauging from their dominance in the meeting, they were the sponsors and that they were using ECAMA as platform to discredit the land bills that will be tabled in this siting of parliament.

In 2016 when United Democratic Front (UDF) leader Atupele Muluzi was minister of lands a section that sought to give government powers to revert all the freehold land into leasehold was mysteriously scrapped off from the bill.