The paper is an exposition on the land situation in the country which, it describes, continues to ail of the “land refrigeration” syndrome. While making lands available for basic urban needs still is the heart of the government’s urban policy, not enough is done to control, if not avert, hoarding of lands – some of which would otherwise have been used for housing and support services – by property owners, developers and investors alike. The paper specifically focuses issues in urban land reform, particularly those that aggravate urban land problems in the country. For example, land acquisition powers of the government, a crucial component of urban land reform policy, has been largely underused or clipped because of its relatively conservative views on land and property ownership.