LENGTHENING leases of Fijian native land from 50 to 99 years is what, in sporting circles, is termed a good call.
Full marks to the interim Government for making the change.
From the print media we learn it will affect isolated, unplanned and unsurveyed land used for tourism, forest plantations, pig and chicken farms, grazing land, agriculture and development leases.
Other major land uses include water supply catchment and hydro-electric water impoundments but I am not sure if these are included. Whatever, we should note that the new change is a landmark one because it elevates native land to near freehold status.
How much land
The extent of native land in Fiji covers about 90 per cent of our national resources. So the Native Land Trust Board has jurisdiction over more than 1600 square kilometres to benefit from the new format.
When we overview all land development in Fiji to date, we should remember they were mostly on state freeholds and other freeholds which comprised the other 10 per cent of our dry land area. In other words, what the new regulation does to the landowners is empower them financially by attracting a superior return on their land investment for a longer period at market value.
It brings in stability and security for stakeholders.
A vital statistic in all this is the fact that if you lease native land you will be there for your whole life and the landowner receives a market value-based system rental, all his life as well.
In the fancy words of today, it is a win-win deal for everybody and opens new doors of opportunity for native land.
Why now not earlier?
There may have been genuine reasons for keeping leases short at 10, 20, 30 and 50 years from 1940 until now but these may have been political, mostly.
To be honest, it was through indigenous fear that they would lose their land.
They would like to look back every 50 years or so and be assured their land is still there, available for their use.
For pine and mahogany estates on 50-year leases, the Forestry Department, Fiji Pine or Fiji Hardwood Corporation can only harvest trees at year 30 and replant again.
But they will not be able to harvest the second crop because the lease would have expired in 20 years.
On a similar vein, farm leases for 30 years were designed as if to make sure tenants would be on the march, lock stock and barrel at year 30, leaving everything behind for the landowners.
Quite candidly, it was almost like a diabolical scheme for the tenant to come in, do all the back-breaking development work and get chased off just when his children reach marriage age. There is, however, one over-riding suspicion which must be mentioned. All past governments since 1970 were afraid to tamper with native land even though they knew the archaic laws constrained native landowners to remain poor.
Dog in a manger
I remember a brilliant Indian leader from my young days who said something about a boy in a manger mentality which Fijians had. A.D. Patel's phrase remained with us for about 50 years.
We protected our land and denied its use to those who genuinely wanted to do so, in much the same way as the dog chases away horses and cattle that want to eat the grass in the manger.
No clear majority
My recollection of the past six general elections is that no government really had a big majority in Parliament.
It was always a 45-55 split that debarred the passing of any really progressive laws such as land reforms.
When Fijian fear made sure our land were safely tucked away as entrenched pieces of our constitution, they lacked the vision to predict its cruel verdict on our people tenants and landowners.
Depopulation, trauma
When the tears of farmers started streaming down their faces when their 30-year farm leases started expiring in 1997, we were entrapped in a rig of our own making. It was a silly thing to do.
We watched in disbelief as our brothers tore down their houses, harvested their crops, turned their backs on their parents mandir, school, lifetime friends and moved to nowhere.
They now make home in mangrove areas on the outskirts of towns as squatters. All those hundreds of years of farm knowledge and skills out the window.
Freehold land values
This is the domain of the real estate man, land agent and valuer.
I expected them to tell the country what the longer leases on native land will do to the country, especially Fijian landowners but since they elected to remain quiet, in fact unconcerned when the lease law changes were announced, I will put my body on the cross and venture some observations.
Developed lots in a planned city in northern Viti Levu are being sold for more than $2300 per square metre. At Maui in Nadroga, a quarter acre is worth about $400,000.
Just 30 years ago in urban Suva, freehold land for Housing Authority needs were worth $25,000 to $100,000 a hectare. Therefore, it is not too far-fetched to envision native land for development leases earning $500,000 to $1million depending on its location.
Pine land and mahogany estates used to be leased for 5c and 10c an acre (12c and 25c a hectare) pittance and peanuts to pay for the barks of logs, not the timber. It is almost like a cruel joke by industries valued at billions of dollars. But our governments claimed that landowners were lucky to get money for doing nothing.
30-year farm leases
An impoverishing element of our 30-year farm lease system is the avoidance of rental based on market value. Also, there is no provision for the immediate continuance of leases when the 30 years lease life has run its course and expired.
It is like a cul de sac a dead end to a farming family's livelihood.
I will avoid retracing my arguments against the use of non-market value-based rental.
Rather, my focus in this opinion is against a provision which allows land agents and valuers to decide whether to charge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 per cent of the assessed land value.
The system is qualitative and amounts to what one might call an educated guess which makes a world of difference to what the landowner gets in rental.
Considerable abuse of both landlord and tenant results from such freedom.
Some pay too much for rubbish land and too little for the best ones. In the same way the landowner is ripped-off.
Valuation schedule
A new valuation schedule is specified by law to be declared by a committee of valuers every five years.
For Fiji the first schedule was done in 1977 and the last in 1997 and one can study changing land values over the 20-year period.
At its very basic, the valuation system lumps all forms of agricultural uses under five main land uses grazing (gr), dairying (dy) arable crops (ab), rice (rf) and tree crops focusing on coconut (tc).
Each of the five forms of land use is then graded into four classes of land ranging from the best to the only marginally suitable, such that any land is either first class, second class, third class or marginal class, the equivalent of fourth. There is also the geographical location of each land class, to compare it with other parts of Fiji, and a scale of values is used for impressing these differences.
As a consequence we see the highest values in the sugar belt of northwest Viti Levu and Macuata. The lowest land values are given for coconut areas and grazing land.
As a student of earth science, I am always quizzing why scientifically identical land cannot have the same basic value before bonuses are added, according to land sales analysis for various locations.
My point is that the beautiful coastal plains of Cakaudrove are extremely undervalued mainly because they are used as copra estates. It seems like the greatest abuse of indigenous assets.
A question of per cent
Let us construct a table of farm land values based on 1997 value schedule and closely look at the interplay of landuse type and land classes from the proceeding section, against location. The issue here is that rental due to the native landowner is not assessed according to this table.
The NLTB, which is landlord for native land, has to select what percentage of the above land value it will base its assessment on.
The law empowers if to use anything from one to 6 per cent.
We can see from the table that the percentage chosen makes a lot of difference and can make or break the stakeholder.
We need a flat maximum rental without latitude.
Fijians hard done by
The whole point of comparing leases of 30, 50 and 99-year terms and rental assessment using different land valuation system is to see how each affects the native owners.
We do not have to be professors of economics to realise that our journey since 1977 has been along a dark tunnel. We cannot compare the benefits of 99 years over 30.
Ineffective governments
There will always be those who harp on political correctness, constitutional freedom, democracy, human rights, ballot box elections, properly constituted parliaments and governments of natural unity.
We have a right to question why, when all they did in 40 years was perpetuate a system where Fijians subsidised others to prosper. Helping move a country forward, which seems to be the catch-phrase, is not compatible with suppressing more than half the population who own 90 per cent of natural resources.
Non-government organisations which champion constitutional rights need to redefine and recharter their struggles and objectives so that they are people-centred.
Until then, kudos to the interim Government for the breakthrough.
The author is a former member of the Land Conservation Board and founding member of Waidalice Chilling Centre and Milk Producers Investment of Tailevu.
