MORE than 1 000 people mostly residents of Ichimpi farming had yesterday morning protested at Kalulushi civic centre,demanding explanation from the council why the piece of land they had acquired residential plots from had been now allocated to a Chinese firm.
The people whose most of them were women said the Ichimpi land was degazetted in the MMD government and later this year the Kalulushi Municipal Council had a meeting and allowed them to acquire plots.
One resident Mrs Suzen Katunasa said she had stayed in that area over 20 years.
“I started staying there before 1991. I have a farm and a plot, so we want to know where the council will take us if they give it to Chinese,”she said.
But Kalulushi Public Relation Manager Beauty Undi said those people had illegally acquired plots, because the land in question had no Statutory Instrument from the Ministry of Lands.
She alleged that it was a named councillor who had been allocating them plots, adding that he was asking K500 for each plot.
“We know that these people got plots illegally. We know that a certain area councilor charged them K500 and to some extent K20 for a plot,”Ms Undi said.
She also explained that the plot where Chines company is building is not the same land, as that one for Chinese company is in Kalulushi area under plot title Number 1884.
She stressed that her council will not tolarate any illegality in terms of land allocation.
…and has this criminal known only to you been charged or is he or she roaming free to one day become president and deny any wrong doing?
Legalise their entitlement or show them this evidence and make a plan how to avoid selling the ground under their feet then move on instead of bending backwards for the ‘forenaz’ first.
Support local residents & stop this insanity. Find the Chinese a land some place else, they have money and they can always develop infrastructure around whatever land is allocated to them. These people you are displacing have little already in the way of livelihood, don’t take away even the small patches of land they have to rest their heads on! Instead you should be supporting them using your legal team to help them acquire the necessary title deeds. This named councillor who sold them the land is one of yours so as far as they are concerned they have a reasonable expectation that they bought the land from the council. Respect people’s lives please!
Zambians come first, please don’t allow foreigners to take up all land in the name of investment. We will be displaced shortly in our own country by these Chinese. Land allocation should be in partnership with Zambians , by this way we will ensure that land remains in the hands of our people. If foreigners displace us, it will be very difficult if not impossible to take back our land. Next they will want to take part in national politics and stand for presidency. Its a matter of time more over we die in big numbers every day from all sorts of reasons, empower Zambians first by allocating them land and foreigners should be renting from locals not the other way round. Get a leaf from Botswana, you will appreciate how land is managed in that country.
KAPOMA KABASO, YOU ARE ASKING FOR TOO MUCH. ITS A PITY THE WAY ZAMBIA IS BEING SOLD TO OTHER NATIONALS. I TOTALLY, AGREE WITH YOU THAT FOREIGNER SHOULD JUST JOIN CITIZENS WHO ALREADY OWN LAND. IN FACT THERE’S A LOT ZAMBIA CAN LEARN FROM BOTSWANA HOW TO RUN GOVERNMENT ON LOCAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL. THERE’S EVEN A LOT MORE ZAMBIA CAN LEARN HOW TO DESIGN AND CONSTRUCT BUILDINGS, ROADS AND BRIDGES.
We run the country the way we run our private lives; always reacting only when the pain is at its maximum. The squatters are never proactive enough to legalize their occupation on the one hand – on the other the administrators are not proactive enough to keep land under their purview current in terms of its state until some cash-totting buyer shows up and riles everyone up. This is a very unfortunate state of affairs which leads to actual takeover of land while the country’s indigenous are in free-fall arguing with their perceived protectors. It is small wonder we even have the Ventriglias and Mahtanis playing ping-pong with what should be a straight-forward case of ownership and industrial affairs.
The Councilor who was involved in this illegal land allocation is well known by the council
This MMD Councilor was using this illegal allocation to make money and gain political mileage with an intention to stand on UPND as MP but as it stands, the caliber of such is what UPND does not want because they are morally full of seed of corruption and right now he has since been suspended. And we as UPND will not condone such acts of leadership and his name is councilor Mr.Mwalilino of Ichimpe ward under MMD.
So this Undi was bribed by Chinese and now favours Chinese than her own people sad
The councellor did nothing wrong in helping the locals acquire land. He shouldn’t be jailed. He is a good human ring helping his own citizens.
The government shouldn’t rush into issuing land to foreigners at the expense of locals. If any of you guys went to China, they wouldn’t even give u piece of land to build a toilet, why then should you treat then like kings when these chinese suppose to own nothing but rent the land and pay royalties than give them title deeds to own it forever.
Please learn a lesson from Zimbabwe where somebody had to grab massive land from foreigners and ended up looking like an ***** to the whole world. It’s such mistakes that in turn would result in locals grabbing land in the near future, and it will be chaos everywhere. Don’t bet your odds against…
Zambians worship foreigners and they will bend over, knock their teeth out to appease a foreigner. We have this misconception that ” foreigners ba ndalama”. Welcome to Zambia, where any foreigner is king or queen.