STOP CHILANGA LAND SAGA

IT appears the Patriotic Front must stop treating with kid gloves those people who have continued to be engaged in shady illegal land dealings with no respect for the law. It is shocking that within days when President Edgar Lungu spoke out strongly and advised PF members against being implicated in illegal land dealings that warning appears to have fallen on deaf ears. The story in which suspected PF cadres have invaded land belonging to the Ministry of Lands in Mount Makulu in Chilanga and are illegally demarcating and selling to unsuspecting people makes sad reading. It is sad in the sense that these cadres are cleary defying a directive from President Lungu, not only in his capacity as the republican Head of State but as leader of the governing PF. How can the same people claiming to support President Lungu go against his directives by engaging in activities that not only undermine his authority but also bring problems for his administration? What is even worse is that the local administration in Chilanga are well aware of the illegal activities taking place but do not want to take decisive action against the illegal perpetrators of this land invasion. It is not enough for the Chilanga District Commissioner, Ms Edith Muwana to talk about taking stern action against the cadres involved in this land scam. Action is what is required – immediately. Ms Muwana said she was aware that cadres were allocating land illegally, adding that her office had already reported the matter to both the Ministry of Lands and the police who would soon arrest and prosecute the culprits. “Yes I am aware of that and even the owners of the land which is the Ministry of Lands is aware. Those are illegal plots. In fact, there are about three places in Chilanga that have been invaded. The invaded lands include Balmoral, Mwembeshi and Mount Makulu in Linda compound.” These cadres should have been rounded up immediately it was reported that they were illegally demarcating and selling plots for land that was not theirs. Who in the first place told them that the land was up for grabs? When our reporters got to the site and inquired about buying a piece of land, one of the leaders identified as Mr Miti (chairman in charge of allocating plots) flanked by a number of cadres said 10m x 15m plots were available at K15, 000 to outsiders. “We have plenty of plots as you can see, just choose the area you want and upon payment of K15, 000 we shall issue you a receipt at our party office in Linda compound and allocate you a 10m x 15m plot. “But before we sell you a plot, we need to know where you are coming from because these plots are meant to empower our local party members who are supposed to pay only K550. Out of K550, K500 is for the operations of the party structures while the K50, we want to use it to hire the grader to work on the road as you can see that the roads are impassible,” Mr Miti explained. Clearly, this shows that the so-called cadres spearheading this illegality must have some backing somewhere. If they do not, then the PF secretariat should also step in and stop the rot before it gets out of control. We all know what happens when illegal land transactions are ignored in the initial stages. People claim they had been settled on the land for long and demand that the settlements be legalised. But these are settlements that do not have any social amenities, proper water supply, sanitation, road networks, schools and health facilities to mention a few because they were not planned for. We note that Ms Muwana is aware of what is going on for she stated clearly that no non-Council or non-Ministry of Lands staff is allowed by law to demarcate and sell land belonging to Government. It, therefore, follows that she should play a leading role as the person on the ground to stop the Chilanga nonsense and not expect “Lusaka” to sort out the mess in her backyard.