By Bida Elly David
A lawmaker at the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA) has accused the Ministries of Housing; physical infrastructures and the judiciary for being contributors to the on-going land grabbing and misappropriation saying that the officers concerned need to be investigated against their act.
This development transpired during a one-day drill on the status of the national land policy organized by the Civil Society Taskforce funded by the Norwegian people’s Aid (NPA).
Speaking during the event, Morad Meseka the chairperson of the investment committee at the National Legislative Assembly reiterated that the confusion and disputes among citizens over the issues of land in the Country has been instigated by the senior staff at the Ministry of Land and Housing as well as some legal advocates.
He pointed out that the people working in the ministries concerned with land have been involved in issuing land title deeds of one plot to over several people who end up conflicting among themselves upon claims.
“You are given a land and issued a land lease. Again, somebody comes for the same land. The same ministry is the one issuing the land lease, what is this? When you come to register as a procedure in the court at the land registry, you will find that the land you are having is already being registered. This is terrible, now how much the law says. The dirty people are not removed from that work, the mess will still move on. Imagine a land title issued to a person since 1998 lastly issued to a different person in 2000. The same survey also is corrupt like the Ministry of Housing” he said.
Furthermore, he revealed out that unless the people working in the concerned ministries of land, physical infrastructures as well as the judiciary are fired, unfair allotment of land and high rate of corruption shall never be prevented.
He called on the government to ensure that the land policy draft is finalized to ensure serious and affirmative awareness to the citizens regarding the use and allotment of spaces to people through justice.
He underscored that money has been one of the factors that made the officials corrupt and unfair towards rendering unfair services to the citizens in the Country.
“Because of money, roads are turned to be plots, because of cash; one land title is issued to more than one person through which the rivals tend to kill themselves. All these confusions are caused by the concerned ministries,” he said.
However, another parliamentarian whose name remained unanimous said that the judiciary has caused a lot of fights among people through unfair judgement of land cases saying that they were fake legal personnel with high monetary interest.