By Taban Henry
Authorities in Juba County of Central Equatoria state on Monday launched an awareness campaign on legal land acquisition aimed at discouraging land grabbing and how to make people aware on land rights.
The new development came during the launching of the jingle on the local procedures of acquiring land in Juba County.
Addressing the media, the Commissioner of Juba County, Eng. Charles Joseph Wani said that they are launching the jingle awareness on the issues of land that is becoming rampant in the County and the City suburbs in order to communicate to the people of South Sudan how to acquire land.
He said there are processes of acquiring land in Juba City and Juba County of which you apply to the local authorities, Payam Directors, County Commissioner and the Ministry of Housing after that it will go through the process of demarcation which is the work of the government, but not the work of the community.
“The importance of the jingle is to allow our people not to be cheated by the chiefs in most of the areas in Juba County, the likes of Jebel Lemon, Jebel Dinka, Liriki, Newsite and Hai Referendum all these areas whoever is there is not a legal person whom you can acquire land from him or her,” he said.
Eng. Joseph added that since he assumed office as the commissioner of Juba County, he found the issue of land becoming a national threat where everyone wants to take the land on his or her own way which he described as emerging to be organized crimes.
The commissioner cited that people collect themselves in groups, some of them even got weapons to resist the government and illegally petitioned plots.
Joseph said the rampant unlawful acquisition of land in Juba is what made the county authorities to come out with the jingle awareness to tell people how to acquire land in Juba County in order not to be cheat by others.
“Two weeks ago, three of our soldiers were shot in Liriki just because we were going to rescue the land of the people which has been grabbed after reaching there we found that most of the people there were well armed in which they began shooting the government authority until they shot three of our people who are currently nursing injuries,” he cited.
The County Commissioner however stated that last year the same incident happened in Amadi area west of Juba city were they apprehended most people of which some of them were taken to the court and some of them took three months in the court until the situation was calmed down.
He noted that till then they did not find a permanent solution to the land disputes.
Joseph stated that the constitution defines in three categories such as public, community and private land and according to the constitution, land is said to be belonging to the community but it’s regulated by the government.
“The government regulates the land because there are processes of planning but when the locals are the ones planning they don’t have the standard of planning and when we are planning we have the government institutions that need to be included in the planning process like the sewage system, open spaces, schools, police stations, fire brigades which has to be all included in the planning and once its done by the locals you will not find proper planning, this is just because it’s done by people from the area who just come out and start demarcating the area,” he explained.