A signboard by the ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development warns developers at Sinza A in Dar es Salaam against putting up structures on a site meant for sports and recreation. According to Sinza A residents, it is almost a year since it was issued, but nothing has been done. PHOTO | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER 

Dar es Salaam.
 If you live in a neighbourhood with an open plot that is at risk of being grabbed, you can take it easy—courtesy of a government move to protect vacant land from grabbers threatening to lay their hands on the few recreational grounds here and in other major cities. The strategy involves giving neighbours “user rights” that would enable them to keep away speculators and people with ill intentions.
According to the permanent secretary in the lands ministry, Mr Alphayo Kidata, he and his team are in the process of identifying all open spaces countrywide. This will be followed by a major campaign to protect them. “We are currently uploading all urban plans and we encourage people to identify the open spaces in their neighbourhoods so we can involve them in this plan to protect them,” said Mr Kidata.
The ministry has issued a guideline to local authorities on protecting such land and Mr Kidata wants residents of such neighbourhoods to collaborate with the lands ministry in taking up user rights.
The idea is to make the people the protectors of these types of land rather than leave them fully in the hands of local authorities. Those given user rights will not be allowed to develop or use the land for purposes other than those backed by the law. And no change of land use plans for areas gazetted or designated as open spaces will be sanctioned by the director of urban planning.
The move is the latest in a series of attempts to stop massive plot allocation and misuse and abuse of public land by private developers working in collusion with local government leaders. Lack of tight controls by local authorities has denied children their playgrounds and adults have also lost recreational grounds.
The new strategy comes at a time questions are being raised as to  how much grabbed land has the government reclaimed so far—and especially so after Lands minister Anna Tibaijuka vowed to reclaim them in 2010. To send a message that she meant business, Prof Tibaijuka demolished a building on a prime plot along the Ocean Road beach area and rekindled hope that she would turn things around.
Four years down the line, there are those who argue that the minister’s vigour has faded and there has been no significant success in reclaiming grabbed land. Widespread corruption involving local government leaders and officials in the lands ministry has made the situation worse as more pieces of land gazetted as open space are grabbed by private developers with impunity. But the PS is optimistic that the new approach will work. Already, residents of Bunju, Mbezi and Masaki have been granted user rights and are developing the land for their communities.
But an official of the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute (HakiArdhi), Mr David Chiombola, says that the approach will work only if the land owners are not allowed to transfer title deeds. He asked: “What assurance do we have that a community will not transfer the title deed to other people?”
Moreover, since the community is not a legal entity, it would be difficult for the government to acknowledge it. “I agree with the move by the ministry to identify all open spaces and reclaim grabbed ones,” he adds, “but it must make legal arrangements to restrict abuse of user rights.”
The duty of protecting vacant land is with the local government ministry and leaders, who have been asked to make sure such land in their jurisdiction is protected.
Reinstate land rangers
The lands ministry could re-instate land rangers and assign them to protect open public spaces at all levels. “In this set-up,” says Mr Chiombola, “when an area is grabbed, we know who to first hold accountable.”HakiArdhi attributes the abuse of public land to the culture of letting officers who have previously violated urban plan regulations to get away with allocating open spaces—at great cost to the nation.
“The problem we have is one that one commits an offence here and no one feels they have a duty to reprimand him or her,” he explains. “And we think the best way is to let the misconduct continue.”
This is where the rule of law comes in and there are those who argue that it is time to reverse that thinking so that those who commit an offence are held accountable and the grabbed land is reclaimed.  
According to Agenda Participation 2000, an NGO that promotes good governance, earlier investigations and reports indicated that illegal developers were colluding with corrupt land officers and law enforcement agencies to take over open spaces in return for cash and other incentives.