Economist Lubinda Haabazoka has predicted that in the next ten years, the land question will become relevant in Zambia as it in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Dr Haabazoka said it is worrying that all the prime land in Lusaka is in the hands of the Chinese.
He predicted that the land issue will be relevant in Zambia in the next ten years as it is in other neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe and South Africa.
“Look at Lusaka, all prime land is in Chinese hands. You can’t blame the Chinese. You have to learn from them. Give Zambians soft loans to go and buy real estate in China. If laws in China won’t permit, then change your laws as well not to permit them,” Dr Haabazoka suggested.
He added, “We need to be clever in our dealings. I can rest assure you that in 10 years time, the land question will be relevant in Zambia as it is in Zimbabwe and South Africa coz we are giving away land at a fast rate.”
Dr Haabazoka however commended the Zambian government for tightening the issuance of work permits to foreign nationals.
“One thing I would like to commend government on is the tightening of the issuance of permits to foreign nationals!!! Kudos to home affairs, especially in the mining industry, we have enough experts! Our Zambian engineers are being paid K3000 per month whilst expatriates can get as high as $7000 a month on average. Let’s take over our affairs!!! Let’s stop blaming neighbours for our poverty,” he charged.
He continued, “I have seen pictures of Africans being mistreated and sold off as slaves in Libya!!! I have no pity at all. Why blame Libyans and not governments in their countries of origin? You won’t see Southern Africans in boats crossing into Europe. There are countries doing very bad in Southern Africa but you won’t find their citizens on boats crossing into Europe.”
“And the issue here is not about distance. It’s because other African countries are preoccupied in improving their countries than running to the states or Europe. West Africa including Somalia and Eritrea are very rich countries. Citizens in these countries should make their governments work for the people. How much money are their leaders sending to offshore accounts? Cameroon has a president who has been in charge since time in memorial!!! The guy needs to go. What are Cameroonians doing about it?”
He said, “Look at our friends in Congo DR, very rich country but they allow a person to stay illegally in charge. Every time I pass through Joburg airport, South African black airport staff ask me why us Africans from other countries like traveling too much?”
Dr Haabazoka advised that African should stop listening to politicians who blame the west for their internal problems.
“We need to stop listening to politicians who blame the west for internal problems. Mugabe did so but lived lavishly and shopped in Europe. The whole of west Africa has beautiful Atlantic Ocean sand beaches. How many have been developed to attract tourists? In Liberia people go to the beaches to answer the call of nature! Why should Liberians fight each other instead of developing their nation? Is America to blame?”
Stop giving space to dirty hawkers to trade in downtown Lusaka.
Lucinda is a racist and certainly I can tell from the tone of his expression here.
Shameful.
This man is a weasel.
Thanks
BB2014,2016
He is not a racist, he is a patriot.
A racist is one who puts his race first and despises other races.
A patriot is one who puts his country first and does not despise other races.
Look at this hypocrite @1.1 who despises black folks and always praising Scotland now calling others racists.Utter drivel from Mushota mongrel.
I concur with our esteemed learned colleague Dr Haabazoka. We are in a population burst yet massive chunks of land is being sold out forgetting that population burst calls for plans to absorb or to square. The Malthusian growth model comes into play. As patriotic Zambians we have debated this matter before now quickly growing into a combustible issue before hand. It is one clear and present dangers confronting the country like never before. I hope Director General Nkhoma has picked it up for his Presidential briefing. It is a national security risk which citizens and the Government must realize the need to stop immediately.
NO ZAMBIAN CAN GET LAND IN CHINA…NEVER!!!. THEIR LAWS DON’T ALLOW FOREIGNERS TO GET LAND. The same about Europe and USA.
Show me 1 Zambian with 1 acre of land in China or Europe, you wont find one and yet we give Chinese and Muzungus as much as 500 hectares for free or very little money. Very caress government.
China own Zambia now, KALOBA is the problem. All those nice stadiums.
– Chinese are NOT allowed to own even a 1metre x 1metre plot in there own country.
– South Africa has banned land ownership by foreigners. Yet we see PF00Lish Govt handing over land to tu ma Choncho-lee.
Now the price of land has become too high for locals. Chinese come & buy large tracts of land & sub-divide it into small portions & sell to locals at abnormal prices.
PF00Lish Govt is the worst curse Zambia has ever had. It’ll take bloodshed & $-billions to reverse blunders by PF00Lish Govt
LUBINDA IS A TRUE PATRIOT ZAMBIAN. HE IS NOT A RACIST BUT JUST BEING TRUTHFUL. ZAMBIANS CAN’T LEARN EVEN FROM THE NEIGHBOURING ZIMBABWE AND SOUTH AFRICA. IT IS A SHAME. WHERE ON EARTH ARE YOU GOING TO BE GIVEN LAND AS A BLACK AFRICAN? LAND IS ON GIVE AWAY ONLY IN AFRICA. LISTEN TO LUBINDA OR YOU ARE DOOMED AS A COUNTRY IN THE NEAREST FUTURE.
If you go to Europe, white Europeans come first. If you go to USA, Americans come first before any foreigner, literally in everything. If you go to China, you cannot even work even if you’re married to a Chinese citizen. You cannot even become a Chinese citizen, even if you’re married to a Chinese citizen. We roll out a red carpet for foreigners when they show up in Zambia, and yet when we show up in their countries, we’re treated like lepers. We cower in fear, and self – debasement when foreigners come to our country. We bow down to them, and show that we consider them superior to us, even though they’re standing on our soil. We don’t have to tell them that we think they’re superior to us—they can read it in our body language and actions. Even at the airport when these…
(Continued)… foreigners arrive in our country, they’re given more respect than the native Zambians. And yet when we visit their countries, they treat us like thieves and we have to prove our innocence. Foreigners who come into our country, be it Whites or Chinese or Arabs, should not be treated like kings at the expense of the native Zambians. Zambians should always be first priority in our country. Secondly, if you let foreigners control your land, you don’t have a country. Because a country is land. Land should only be given to foreigners if they become permanent residents, and unless they want commercial land for setting up a business, the only land they should be allowed to buy is land for building their own house for their own dwelling. That’s it. Foreigners with money are…
(Continued)… buying land from under the feet of poor natives all over Africa, building apartments on them, and then renting them out expensively. Sometimes they can even be absentee landlords who don’t even domicile in the country. You need to deliberately make it hard for foreigners to acquire land in Zambia.
For as long as the people in GRZ offices and Banks are guided by stone age mentality, no Zambian will ever succeed in buying land or setting up a viable business through Bank loans. The credit worthiness of Zambian start up businesses is based on the colonial mentality of presenting three years audited accounts when what is being set up is a green field project. If anyone can challenge me, show me any Bank in Zambia that has been able to approve a loan for greenfield projects by Zambians. Where do you think someone who has a brilliant business idea and has done homework on both business and financial projections would get three years audit report from a business which never existed? You even have presidents who are happy to commission foreign companies’ projects which Zambians can do if…
This is why I don’t like changing governments because new people think with the media and not their heads. Under UNIP the law did not allow foreigners to own land but MMD changed all this in an effort to attract infestors resulting in the situation we are now facing.
go to chisamba area. lenjes headmen have sold all land to chinese.
Because they’re a lazy tribe.
Nkana Kitwe You a dirty tribalist
These headmen think that the land belongs to them as individuals; they pretend to forget that they simply hold the land in trust on our behalf, us the people who hail from these chiefdoms. Maybe it is high time we do away with these chiefs.
Very true!
You go to a village headman to get land, you are asked to pay the same amounts the rich foreigners are paying and sometimes they tell you there is no land. Zambian Leadership is rotten; Politicians, Counsellors, Village headmen etc, all. Its easier for a foreigner to get something than for a citizen. Very soon we will be fighting with the same problems of land that South Africa and Zimbabwe have been fighting for only because we have leaders who think with their stomachs
Is this Lubinda himself in control of some prime Lsk land or started several companies given that he’s an economist?.
He hasn’t accomplished that ,so he’s advising others to do so he’s just a pretender preaching the virtues of fine wine while he himself can only afford cheap plain water.
It’s only the teacher’s lessons that should be followed, not the teacher’s life style.
Sorry to say this but just as the government must be advised to excise caution on land issues, Lubinda must take time to organize seminars through out Zambia to educate Zambians on the importance of land. I say this because I have discovered that the land government gave to retrenched miners have already converted to cash even before it’s demarcated. The government wanted to empower us but we have done the opposite.
“…I can rest assure you…” What kind of English is that? One can only REST ASSURED of something. Meaning that when you are assured of something, you can even rest or relax. So we say, “I can rest assured…” Or “You can rest assured…”
Lubinda I agree with you on Land and we need to revisit our laws. However you lack common knowledge on the current mass migration now characterized with slave trade. The people are running away from wars, strife, oppression, ethinic/cleansing, harsh economies, political persecution. The recipients of these ‘slaves’ are the West. As usual, as in history, the sellers of slave remain to be the Arabs. Do you even understand the complexity of problems of DRC? Once the West stop formenting problems there, we can have Zaire back to even supply us with more salaula than never before. Who is backing ISIS Boko Haram in Nigeria, and you want our brothers and sisters there to remain adhesively with Boko Haram? my man you are clueless on African problems because you are not a pan-africanist. And…
@A bena Ng’umbo, I love the last part. Some Zambians don’t realize that wars like the one in the Congo is fermented by the West for various reasons /interests. Kabila has never been rebuked by America and its allies for the simple reason of that what’s happening in DRC is to their advantage. They don’t like a stable African country especially one endowed with so much natural wealth like the DRC. Disturbances in our countries create jobs and enhance industry in the West. They can’t accept Gaddafi’s Libya, or Sadam ‘s Iraq. I love Kim Il Un of the DPRK.
This is being patriotic Mr Habaazoka , it’s true.
Habaazoka is right, but the conundrum is how can we strike a balance between yawning for FDI and ‘not giving land to foreigners’. “Every time I pass through Joburg airport, South African black airport staff ask me why us Africans from other countries like traveling too much?” – Its because our countries are not producing much and not developed its not like we have a choice.
HABAZOKA you are very right and clear in the message you are putting across. This message in my thinking is directed at the higher authorities who make laws for us the grassroots. At this pace the “few”, if not so many already, shall own all prime land. Take a tour of the road to Kabwe and may be only up to 15 miles peg, see who owns which land on the road front. If its not a Chinese then it is a Somalian. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS, trying to be good for nothing? Can you please table it in Parliament.
@ pink toe,,,you guys who’re in Zambia need to get organized and speak out more on the issue. Zambians outside the country do not really have a clear picture of what’s going on in our country. You can be our eyes and speak out. Then we’ll join your voice to pressure the government to act. Otherwise, things will continue getting worse if you guys just watch and do nothing about it.
On point.As long as we do not deliberately create policies that have a threshold to EMPOWER the citizens as a matter of national priority and pride we are going nowhere as a nation.Land is a very important factor of production maybe thats why most of the most brutal fights here on earth have been over ownership or non ownership of land.
My simple proposal is that we should move as a matter of of urgency to look into proposals that should empower our people economically.For example as a starting point lets us identify economic sector that should be reserved for CITIZENS ONLY..eg
Licences for Public vehicles
barbershops
Filling stations
tuntemba businesses
supply of agricultural foodstuffs
Poultry rearing
bureau De changes
Internet cafes
And all micro businesses
Should be…
That is the best solution to our economic problems I have seen on LT……you need to strictly reserve parts of cottage industry for Zambians.. …..but GRZ should and needs to step in with training work shops for the same cottage industries reserved for Zambians.. .
To this list GRZ needs to made all driving jobs and security jobs for Zambians only……this is how foreigners are stealing our wealth , how can you allow gonassse to bring more than 70 Senegalese to the all senegalse security department at an emarould mine in zambia ??? At least if we have all serurity guards as zambians some of the wealth not being decleared will be decleared or at least it will be zambians being bribed to keep silent…
Very true and most of it has been given to them in a corrupt manner.
Bowman Lusambo should understand this Land issues in Ndola belongs to Zambians not foreigners . Don’t masquerade as if you’re doing a good job but grabbing it from Zambians . Ukalenga ba Lungu ba kapone .
This issue is very important. Infact UPND should clearly state their land policy. If they say they will stop wholesale issuance of land to foreigners, then they have got my vote.
You can’t trust promises from politicians. Remember Sata promised to chase the Chinese “infestors “? What happened? The number actually trebled when he entered State House.
Mr chintampwaka AllepoTrump, don’t mention of UPND concerning LAND issue because HH is the worst IMPERIAL FIGURE Zambia ever have.Did you know that LIVINGSTONE (tourists capital) is DOMINATED by foreigners WHITES SUPREMACISTS friends of HH? ALL modern hotels, lodges and guesthouses are run by WHITES especially in CHIEF Mukuni garland , brought by HH ?
The whites are better than the Chinese PF are giving all the land to in Lusaka and CB…..atleast whites care for the welfare of their zambian workers yo evtent of paying school fees and clinic fees…..
When you start debating which slave master is better you’ve lost all dignity a d hope. You’re prepared to live as trash forever
Well articulated Mr Lubinda,is true north Africa were we hear some pipo capsized for trying to go European countries in illegal way
“In Liberia people go to the beaches to answer the call of nature!”. Hahahahaha… Africa!!
Lubinda you care for Zambians: God bless you. Each Nationality has been given land why should you start leaving for foreigners. Where will our grand, grand children settle. Leaders care for your subjects, Lubinda is seeing in future and not now.
Ex miners have been putting pressure on government to hand over land promised them even when they know that land has to be surveyed, demarcated and transferred onto plans. The pressure is due to the fact that either someone has already sold and received the money for the land or they have found a customer who can’t pay until everything is in order. This where Dr Habazoka must concentrate. I’m talking about what I have seen and someone is actually appearing in court over the same. Let’s educate our people on land issues. Of course we need laws that will restrict transfer of land to foreigners.
Thanks Lubinda ON LAND, like @2 Shu shu, LET US JUST REVERT TO THE OLD SYSTEM! NO FOREIGN SHOULD GET A 99 Years LEASE, they can partner with locals who have the land!! However, I DISAGREE ON MIGRATION TO EUROPE.Like @9 Abena Ng’umbo as put it, we need to UNDERSTAND THE REAL CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM, rather than just burst to condemn West Africans!MOST of those migrants from W.Africa are from FRENCH SPEAKING COUNTRIES,where France through its policies has implemented bad governance and stealing of national resources through its multinationals and corrupt ruling elites. Yes, Southern Africans are not on those boats simply because we are far,most of those migrants are in S.Africa!! So REAL CAUSE TO ARREST HERE IS TO STOP FRANCE,EUROPE and OTHERS from stealing from Africa so Africa can grow!!
Thank you Wabasoka Habazoka. They should not look away when they are creating a Zimbabwe right in front of our eyes. Our politicians are so shortsighted. They sell land for their immediate needs corruption being the driving force. Chachine Abasoka Habazoka!
He has some points on the land issue but is wrong on Libya and the DRC. How can he say he has no pity for the Africans being treated as slaves in Libya? Is there any justification for treating humans in that deplorable way in this time and age – regardless of what they are fleeing from?
The DRC is a casualty of mercenaries fighting to control and exploit its resources. There are so many actors at play – mainly from the West and the people in mainly eastern DRC are pawns and casualties in a brutal existence that the world has turned a blind eye to.
Habassoka Hagain!
Well spoken DR Haabazoka. I have harboured this feeling and fear for mother Zambia when I see traditional and civic leaders celberating the sale of land to foreigners especially Chinese and Indians. Ishudder to imagi the grievous mistake of auctioning our only jewel land with the rissue of turning our children and children’ children into settlers in future. The money in the pocket today will not guarantee one of the basic needs of a person, the shelter. Right minded, caring, forward looking, patriotic selfless individuals should applaud the Doctor.
The answer to your questions is very plain and simple. STOP CORRUPTION AND GET DOWN TO WORK. Watch how Ethiopia will become a modern powerhouse of African whilst everyone else is sleeping. I thought the Zambian laws forbids foreigners to own land in Zambia anyway? Land belonging to the state can only be leased and the issue with the customary land, where you give a chief a bottle of whiskey in return for hectors of Land should be checked and balanced. Don’t put the Chinese anywhere near your wildlife unless you want to press the extinction button very fast.
It’s true Mr I also foresee zambian in the near future to fight foreigners to get back their land. People in authority love money more than the principles of duty very soon we will be foreigners in our own land .
100% agreement, watch all countries around, Angola, Tansania, Ghana and and and..there they own whole districs now, Africa….wake up!
Spot on Dr. Haabazoka. I am listening to Parliament radio, the first topic was about land, as usual nothing will come out of this debate. Why are foreigners given big tracts of land. Imagine a Rwandese, Burundian or Somalian who was running away from war have land and live a better life than the Zambians. This land issue makes my blood boil. Mugabe, bad as he was, on the land issue I supported him. If you give away land, you are giving away your country. Zambia is the only country where foreigners are given so much freedom, more freedom than what they enjoy in their home countries. Some of these foreigners lock up our people in the shops where they work, nothing is done to the offenders, can a Zambian do that in their countries. When is this going to come to an end .