Namibia’s president called on Monday for a change to the constitution to allow the government to expropriate land and re-distribute it to the majority black population.
“The willing-buyer-willing-seller principle has not delivered results. Careful consideration should be given to expropriation,” President Hage Geingob said at the opening of the Second National Land Conference in the capital Windhoek.
The southern African country wants to transfer 43 percent, or 15 million hectares of its arable agricultural land, to previously disadvantaged blacks by 2020. At the end of 2015, 27 percent has been redistributed, according to the Namibia Agriculture Union.
Namibia’s neighbor and regional economic powerhouse South Africa is also in the process of amending land ownership laws – a move that has shaken investor nerves locally and abroad, leading to a controversial tweet by United States President Donald Trump in August criticizing the move by Pretoria.
