By ALICE NACHILEMBE
Nchanga Member Of Parliament Chali Chilombo says land for ex-miners is still available and they will get it.
Mr Chilombo said the delay in the demarcation of the land has been caused by the sitting tenants from the same area who reacted.
He said the office of the Auditor General had released some money for surveyors to do the demarcation but the sitting tenants reacted angrily because they thought that they were going to be displaced by the ex-miners.
The Law Marker said the process was hampered by poor communication with sitting tenants.
Mr Chilombo said the people were furious but the issue had been resolved by the office of the Mayor and the District Commissioner (DC).
The MP said some farms were demarcated but due to the backlog from the Ministry of Lands who are responsible in demarcating land to the process delayed.
But Mr Chilombo has since engaged the Minister of Lands Jean Kapata who is agreeable, to allow the Council to demarcate land and Government surveyors to do the verification.
“The ex-miners will get their land they shouldn’t resort to protest. Ex-miners is a diverse and if we go with the tag of ex miners we will achieve a lot but if people go political they would even lose what is theirs. This matter is being looked into they need to be patient,” he said.
The MP also said that he is confident that the issues behind the squatters on the land that the council has advertised at Gymkhana will be resolved.
He said the Council demarcated and advertised the land because it was not on title and suddenly people begun to pop up calming the same land.
“Now the Council is trying to find out who allocated them. I’m confident that it will be resolved because apart from that there are other people siting with offer letters from other arears who went through normal council application and when they went to take the land they found structures.
“The Council wants to stop the scenario where people are getting land from unknown people because the council will normalize it afterward,” he said.
Meanwhile the MP has called on the council to speed up the allocation of land to Konkola Copper Mines for the people of Njanji.
He said the people’s lives are at stake and the issue should be treated with the urgency it deserves.
Mr Chilombo was speaking at the PF interactive Forum in Chingola yesterday
