KITWE RAZES 3 ILLEGAL STRUCTURES

ACOMBINED team of Kitwe City Council (KCC) and State police yesterday demolished three structures that had been built on Zambia Army land at Mawlaik Barracks in Kitwe.

e demolition comes barely two weeks after Kitwe Town Clerk Mbulo Seke warned the developers that the local authority would bring down their structures because they were building without planning permission.

Speaking in an interview after the demolition yesterday, Mr Seke said the council with the support of the Zambia Army and Zambia Police Service carried out an operation to demolish structures sitting on Zambia Army land.

Mr Seke said the operation, which started at midnight and ended up at 01:30 hours, was successful.

All the three illegal tures were razed.

“ e demolition at Mawlaik Barracks was a result of a directive from the Minister of Local Government to the Kitwe City Council. e minister himself received a directive from the republican President,” Mr Seke said.

“So I can con rm that as a local authority, we have carstruc- ried out the directive to demolish structures which were sitting on Zambia Army land at Mawlaik Barracks. e operation was carried out from midnight to 01:30 hours,’’ Mr Seke said. Investigations by the Dai

ly Nation revealed that one of the demolished structures belonged to a senior Patriotic Front o cial who was allegedly using a businessman as a front.

On August 10, 2019, Mr Seke warned that developers who are putting up structures on the disputed land near the Zambia Army barracks would have their structures demolished because they were building without planning permission.

He said the penalty for any developer who was putting up a building without the council’s planning permission was demolition.

And a fortnight ago, PF Copperbelt provincial chairman Nathan Chanda warned that the party would not defend councillors involved in illegal allocation and sale of land because they were an embarrassment to the ruling party.