By William Madouk
Thousands of residents in Gudele have filed a petition in the Gudele High Court against the Central Equatoria State Ministry of House, Lands, and Public Utilities over the allocation of their plots to Non-residents.
The angry residents say they have been holding the land acquisition tokens since 2006 but have not received their plots.
About 1,665 indignant households yesterday submitted their petition to the Gudele High Court demanding the state ministry of housing to answer their grievances before the court.
In their plea seen by this outlet, the affected residents protested against the CES Ministry of House, Lands, and Public Utilities for unfair land allocation to outsiders, rather than indigenous.
“The appellant against [CES Ministry of Land] demarcated Gudele [1,2,3,4,5,6,7] areas after a social survey – all names of complainers were registered and they paid fees. However, the appellant against allotted land to non-resident individuals and this violates Art 90 of Land Act 2009,” partly reads the statement.
According to the complainants, since 2009, approximately 3,777 individuals have been left without land despite having tokens. Their efforts to address the issue have been ignored.
“We the complainers have been deprived of our rights to obtain our portion of lands as all state authorities ordered for halting of demarcation in the aforementioned areas,” it added.
A gubernatorial order No: 4/2012, the former governor for CES, Mr. Clement Wani Konga ordered for halting of all demarcation activities and compensation of people who are having tokens.
Similarly, the state anti-corruption commission in their letter dated June 26, 2012, provided tokens for the land survey committee at the ministry. However, the CES Ministry of Housing and Land issued a letter to the court banning any further demarcations.
Indignant residents said they have obtained a no-objection letter from the National Ministry of Justice and Constitutional to open a watertight legal suit against the CES Ministry of Housing and Lands.
“With all the above-mentioned reasons from my client [plaintiff] of their land being allocated to non-residents, I appeal to your esteemed court to abolish documents of those non-residents,” said defense lawyer, Mubarak Samson.
The defense lawyer demands order for the release of the complainants’ documents and be allotted lands in their respective locations in the Gudele area.
The Gudele high court judge accepted the petition pending procedures before the date could be fixed for the accused to appear before a court for a hearing. The victims have now to wait for the judge to settle this case.