Complete Book PDF (4.12MB) - World Bank eLibrary

Land Sector Corruption in Ethiopia 305
Box 7.7
Key Areas of Land Sector Corruption in Ethiopia
The elite and senior officials are capturing assets. This land grabbing is facilitated
by a weak policy and legal framework and poor systems to implement existing
policies and laws. Corruption in the implementation of land policy and laws
occurs particularly through the following:
• Institutionalization of informal fees. As mentioned previously, the FEACC investigation
of corruption in five subcities in Addis Ababa concluded that it was
“nearly impossible to a get a plot of land without bribing city administration
officials.”
• Fraudulent actions of officials. Officials have allocated land for themselves in
both urban and rural areas and for housing associations and developers in
urban areas.
• Officials’ willingness—fraudulently or in response to bribes or nepotism—to overlook
virtually all specified restrictions and requirements, particularly in Addis Ababa,
which has seriously undermined the enforcement of land use plans, lease
conditions, and building and construction codes in urban areas.
• Issuance of forged land documents, resulting from fraud, bribery, or nepotism,
which has seriously eroded confidence in the land records system.
Source: Author.
dispute resolution procedures 13 and there are informal or traditional dispute
resolution mechanisms.
There are no clear standards for the loss of rights due to environmental
and conservation laws. Rural landholders cannot mortgage their
holdings—although an investor leasing land can use the lease as collateral
for a loan. There are also transfer restrictions, and most regions
impose limits on the amount of land that can be leased.
Urban areas have fewer restrictions on rights and more active markets,
but the legal framework for the recognition of land tenure in
urban areas is weak, and most land issues—including those that need
resolution at the federal level—are handled by ever-changing municipality
directives that are generally not enforced. 14 One of the key
obstacles for the legal recognition of urban tenure rights is the absence
of clear, consistent, and systematic policy and procedures regarding
informal holdings, either to prevent their occurrence or to formalize