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308 Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia
Problems can occur in compensating rural landholders where rural
land is absorbed into a municipality. Although the laws provide for compensation,
the party responsible for the payment of compensation is
unclear. This lack of clarity has resulted in cases where rural people whose
land has been absorbed into a city are not compensated
In rural areas, the land records that exist are predominantly manual
and thus difficult to share. In urban areas, information on rights to land is
available to interested institutions upon request by letter with no cost
involved. However, because such information is not held in a systematic
manner, it is usually difficult to access this information.
Key institutional and capacity issues that create opportunities for corruption
include the following:
• The broad delegation to unpublished directives, in the absence of a
strong overarching policy framework, creates opportunities for discretion
by officials.
• The lack of a clear, unambiguous mandate for the resolution of disputes
creates opportunities for forum shopping and fosters an environment
where there is little consequence to illegal activity.
• The laws do not clearly provide for the appointment of independent
lease board members, which creates conflicts of interest, reduces oversight
of administrative activity, and creates opportunities for abuse of
discretion.
Implementation of Processes, Procedures, Manuals
Public land management. State ownership of all land in Ethiopia under
the constitution has the perverse outcome that the state has little incentive
to manage public land because it is the residual owner. Nonetheless,
the recording and demarcation of publicly held land in Addis Ababa and
some regional states is substantial, especially in relation to protected forests
and some of the national parks. Yet no consistent inventory (record
or maps) of public land unambiguously identifies rights and responsibility
for management across the different areas of public land, and this affects
the efficient management of public land and creates opportunities for the
illegal allocation of public land to private parties.
A substantial proportion of expropriated land is transferred to private
interests. The expropriation and relocation of smallholders has been to
the advantage of extensive commercial farming, including flower farms,
biofuel, and other commodities.
Compensation for the expropriation of registered property involves
the allocation of land as well as monetary compensation, but there is