Kazakstan's Land Grab

An offer of free land makes for good press, but the government’s promise to give all of Kazakstan’s citizens their own plot is poorly conceived, hard to deliver on, and little short of populist sloganeering, say NBCentralAsia analysts.



A government resolution issued on August 1 promised each citizen one-tenth of a hectare, about one-fourth of an acre, as a way of delivering on a Land Code provision that guarantees the population free land to build houses on.



On September 7, the justice ministry produced a set of amendments intended to simplify the mechanisms for acquiring land title documents, but these are unlikely to resolve the problems associated with the decision, say NBCentral Asia analysts.



The move has created a public furore, as people try to capitalise on astronomical real estate prices by acquiring potentially high-earning landholdings near large cities. But the paucity of this kind of land suggests that few people will get their own plots. In spite of Kazakstan’s vast territory, most of the population is concentrated in and around a few major cities.



Experts on land issues told NBCA that in cities such as Almaty and Astana, every possible inch of land has already been given over to private construction.



Furthermore, since official residence rights will not be taken into account in handing out the free land, and people designated as belonging to “privileged categories” (pensioners and the like) will go to the front of the queue, there are fears that residents and incomers could come into conflict as the new arrivals get land that the locals feel belongs by right to them.



Analysts such as Eduard Poletaev, editor of the Mir Yevrazii magazine, highlight the risk that the land distribution will be poorly executed, since there are no legal sanctions for officials who fail to make land available or hold the process up.



The government decision also fails to spell out certain issues – for example, what happens if a piece of land does not have basic utilities and other infrastructure in place?



For all these reasons, many analysts conclude that the move is a public relations measure designed to boost the government’s popularity, without any clear way of delivering on the promise.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)