THE shortage of land for residential plots, especially in urban areas has forced some residents to resort to unorthodox actions that have left the authorities wondering what is really going on.
Very often some people close to organisations mandated to allocate land, especially council employees, have taken advantage of land shortage by conning unsuspecting urban residents eager to acquire a residential plot and, in the process, swindling them out thousands of their hard-earned Kwacha.
In their desperation for a piece of land, many urban residents have ended up losing a lot of money at the hands of some unscrupulous council workers or bogus estate agents, who have sold one plot to as many as five buyers.
Very few cases are reported to the Police by people who have been swindled out their money in this manner. Many victims, mainly those who could not trace their swindlers have just ended up losing out, and kept their predicament to themselves.
What is alarming is that many prospective buyers, obviously desperate to own a plot, do not even bother to check the authenticity of the agents, let alone legal owners of plots which are up for sale.
Reports actually abound of suspected party cadres subdividing individuals’ farmlands which they sell to people or share among themselves.
In some instances, some people have been allocated plots just below the Zesco pylons and above water utility firms’ sewer pipes and, without council approval, the buyers have started building their houses.
Graveyards have not been spared either. In the latest incident, reports from Kitwe quote Chimwemwe Ward councillor Charles Kabwita saying that more than 200 residential plots have been zoned into residential plots at an old cemetery in the township.
Mr Kabwita calls these people ‘unscrupulous individuals’ who have invaded the cemetery. To make the situation much more sad, the residents in question have already cleared some tombstones to pave way for actual construction.
As the councilor says, this certainly is an inhuman act by the Zambians who, culturally, know that cemeteries are places where remains of loved ones are put to rest and should, therefore, never be tampered with in any way.
A parallel line should be drawn with one story we carried a few years ago where bogus estate agents sold Chinese investors land within Chilenje old cemetery.
Without knowing that the land was an old cemetery, the Chinese investors even started transporting stones, building sand and other materials to the site in readiness for commencement of construction, only to be restrained by council employees who got wind of the development.
Of course our Chinese colleagues deserved an excuse because as foreign investors, most probably they did not know which areas were for building purposes and how to go about acquiring a piece of land.
This can not be said of Zambians such as the Chimwemwe residents. They surely knew that they had allocated themselves plots in the cemetery.
In addition, they know fully well that in Zambia, burial sites are revered places upon which one cannot encroach anyhow, in this case build a house.
Furthermore, the Government has clearly outlined the process one has follow in order to acquire a plot, yet they ignored all this and went ahead to trespass on burial ground.
Mr Kabwita is certainly justified to express disappointment with management at Kitwe City Council for allegedly being slow in stopping Chimwemwe residents from invading the old cemetery.
Of course the council, as the Ministry of Lands’ appointed land agency, can claim to be ignorant of what has been going at Chimwemwe old cemetery. However, this cannot dispel people’s suspicion of some employees within the local authority selling off the cemetery to some land-hungry Chimwemwe residents.
We, therefore, appeal to Kitwe City Council to get to the bottom of the matter and investigate it, and should some employees be found wanting, punishment must be meted out on those involved.