Chipangali to consult on district location

THE newly created Chipangali district is to hold a series of consultative meetings with chiefs and other stakeholders to decide the location of the districts’ administrative offices, district council secretary Beatrice Katoto said yesterday.

Mrs Katoto said people would be allowed to exercise their democratic right by airing their views, give recommendations and submissions through a series of consultative meetings lined up by the council to ensure there was consensus about the location of the administration offices. Speaking in an interview, Mrs Katoto said she was working towards integrating systems to ensure a coherent planning and implementation of infrastructure development for the establishment of the district.

“We are establishing the district from an idea on paper to actualisation, the initial stage would be for us to engage the people to hear their concerns and then establish their priorities.

“We are taking the consultative route to create a platform for knowledge sharing. On our side as the council we are a team comprising people from different councils across the country. And the people we are about to work with towards development of the district have expectations too. So our interest is to establish a common ground first,” Mrs Katoto said.

She said most of the land in Chipangali was customary requiring the council to consult traditional leaders for any planned development project to be undertaken in the area.

Mrs Katoto said one of the critical areas which she was hoping to address and seek clarity on was management of the local traditional markets in the district.

She said in her investigations, she established that the market authorities were sharing revenue collected with the traditional leaders but her coming in would mean that the council would also get a portion of the revenue.

However, to agree on the sharing of the revenue, it was important that the council, traditional leaders and market administrators reached a compromise, Mrs Katoto said.