Nabbed for tresspassing on own land

By BENNIE MUNDANDO A FORMER Transport Assistance Project (TAP) employee has been dragged to court after being arrested by Kabulonga police officers for criminal trespass over his own titled land in Lusaka’s Ibex Hill which he has owned since November 1991.

In 1990, Daniel Mwale purchased plot No. 20/378a from a loan which he obtained as a civil servant under the Ministry of Works and Supply but unfortunately, when the title was issued by the Ministry of Lands, it indicated that the said plot was co-owned with his workmate, a Mr. Mtonga who did not qualify to get a loan as he was just on secondment to the project.

On July 9, 1990, TAP team leader Pekka Niskalsa wrote to the permanent secretary at the office of the Prime Minister’s decentralisation division over the need to rectify the anomaly but the process dragged on.

“I was ignorant and unaware of the conditions of the civil service under which Mr. Mtonga falls, though he is a secondment to the tap project. Since the officer is already entitled to a housing loan offered by the civil service conditions, I have according cancelled the original projects housing loan provision with respect to the Ibex Hill sub. 20/378/a. in view of the above, Mr. D. Mwale is the sole beneficiary of the said plot,” reads the letter on part.

On July 4, 1993, Mr. Mtonga wrote a letter to the public accounts committee clarifying that the land in question did not belong to him but Mr. Mwale as his conditions of service as a secondment to the project did not allow him to obtain a loan.

“I confirm that I am not a beneficiary of the Ibex Hill project (Sub. 20 of farm 378a) as rectified by the letter written to the team leader (TAP) by the former permanent secretary Prof. Gatian Lungu which I have attached to verify my statement,” reads the letter in part.

However, after the death of Mr. Mtonga, his son sold part of the farm claiming that it was his father’s property as it was jointly purchased and that the new owner of the said piece of land wants everyone out of that piece of land as he wanted to develop it.

Speaking to the Daily Nation yesterday, a tearful Mr. Mwale said his family has been a victim of constant threats from his former workmate’s son and the buyer of part of his farm who were allegedly threatening to bring down his farm house as it was allegedly on the new owner’s plot.

He explained that he had just been released from Kabulonga police station after his sons “paid K200 for police bond” after he was arrested for criminal trespass.