About six families have been left homeless after their houses were yesterday demolished by a combined force of State police and Mopani Copper Mines police.
The houses are alleged to have been built on a piece of land belonging to Mopani Copper Mine farm area in Mindola West.
And Mopani Copper Mines Public Relations Manager Nebert Mulenga confirmed that the company undertook the demolition exercise in order to secure a small piece of its land that had been encroached.
In a statement made available to ZANIS in Kitwe yesterday, Mr. Mulenga said the company undertook the demolition exercise after a comprehensive community stakeholder engagement through notices, community road shows and radio announcements.
And Dr. Patrick Chanda, one of the affected developers expressed shock that Mopani is claiming ownership of the land which was offered to them by Kitwe city council through a proper procedure.
Speaking in an interview with ZANIS in Kitwe yesterday, Dr. Chanda said the affected developers were given the parcels of land by the council and followed the due process as well as obtaining title deeds from the Ministry of Lands in Ndola.
“We had gotten a court injunction to prevent Mopani from demolishing our structures but the mine disregarded the injunction claiming it was a not a real injunction, so we are now going to engage a lawyer to seek advice on what we should do next,” Dr Chanda said.
He claimed that his structure was valued at K2.3 milion while a friend of his had his house valued at over K3 million by government property evaluators.
He said the decision by Mopani was disastrous to the affected people as they had spent huge sums of money constructing the structures that have been demolished.
And when contacted, Kitwe City Council Town Clerk Mbulo Seke said the council has not yet seen the affected people’s offer letters to establish how the concerned pieces of land were obtained.
Mr. Seke explained that for one to begin building, they ought to have a building plan approved by the council and the offer letter must be accompanied by minutes of a council meeting that approved the offer.
Kitwe city has of late witnessed frequent massive demolitions of properties alleged to have been built in illegally obtained pieces of land.
Recently, about 150 households from Luyando Community Association had their houses demolished by Mopani Copper mines in Mindolo North after the mine claimed that the community had encroached on its land.
Government has since secured a piece of land in New Kitwe across Kafue River where these victims who are currently lodged at Hellen Kaunda secondary School grounds will be relocated to
Various warnings would have been issued before this action was taken. As a person who fell victim to squatters on my farm land I can relate to this. I also sent various warnings and legal notices until I was forced to use force and get them off my land. So I would need to hear both sides to this story.
Kaizar Zulu, hope you obtained that farm legally. Once you PF criminals lose the election next year, we’ll scrutinize all your assets to make sure they were legitimately acquired. If not, you’ll forfeit them to the State and go to Chimbokaila. You and your boss, gangster Lungu. You thieves.
The Law must be stiffened to severely punish councilors, council employees and real estate agents that are involved in the illegal alienation of land. All those councilors in Kitwe whom Col. Panko Kaunda wanted arrested have been let loose because they are PF officials, very shameful
Don’t pretend to be a victim here. You were building without title hoping as elections are near they will save your houses and also convince moaning to surrender the land to you. All illegal builders deserve what they get. Now there must even be a law which states that anyone who builds anything without first obtaining title deeds must be jailed.