EXAMINING THE EFFECTIVENESS AND CHALLENGES OF COMPULSORY LAND
ACQUISITION PROCESS IN RELATION TO THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT OF FAIR, FULL AND PROMPT COMPENSATION: THE TANZANIAN PERSPECTIVE
This study is centered to assess the effectiveness and challenges of compulsory land acquisition process to meet legal requirement of fair, full and prompt compensation so as to ensure live hood of future expropriation projects. Despite of the presence of legal and institutional framework governing land acquisition in Tanzanian but still procedures of compulsory land acquisition are filled with everlasting problems between superior land lading and occupants of land as there a lot of complaints concerning with nonpayment, inappropriate ways of assessing amount of compensation or delays in compensation. The whole land in Tanzania is vested under the president as a trustee thus arousal of any public interest the government has power extinguish all proprietary titles, interests and other rights vested in the owners of the land and rather access it to develop infrastructures, hospitals, schools and other related community projects. Laws regulating compulsory acquisition in Tanzania set requirement that any expropriation shall be in accordance with the law and a person whose property have being expropriated is subject to prompt, fair and adequate compensation.
This paper is an attempt to evaluate at what extent land laws and respective institutions are fairly enough to ensure compensation required by law, also highlighting practical challenges hindering the process for instance, complicated and inappropriate assessment of valuation when interventions is done by government and donors such as the World Bank or Africa Development Bank and a number of bilateral organizations, lack of adequate and clear information about the project, little participation, inadequate compensation and non-adherence to procedures, non-adherence of governance principles by authorities expropriating, holders of land lack adequate knowledge about compulsory acquisition, unfamiliarity about legal right for them to have compensation payments, requirement for them to submit claims for compensation payments and procedure involved thereto. The Article recommends that holders of land affected by acquisition of land must be educated on the relevance of submission of claims for compensation as well as on the need to engage valuers to represent them in the compensation assessments.
Key words: Compulsory Land Acquisition, Fair, Full, Prompt Compensation, Land ownership, Expropriation
