RUNDU – Residents of Divundu village staged a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday to air their grievances against CEO Athanasius Maghumbo whom they accused of lack of public consultation on the allocation of municipal land.

The concerned residents said various individuals had given up their land to make way for the growth of the local authority and were relocated to unserviced land but have not been compensated to date.

“We the concerned community of Divundu are hereby submitting, this petition to bring to your esteemed attention the urgent need for the removal of the chief executive officer for the Divundu Village Council due to the following reasons,’’ said Freddy Marando who read the petition on behalf of the petitioners.

“The community is losing their land without consultation and compensation and there’s unfair distribution of plots, with strong concerns that community members are being sidelined while outsiders are given preference. Some lost their land from 2016 but to date they have not been paid, the Divundu natives try to apply for serviced land here but they are not considered while people from outside come and in a month they are given plots, and we are not happy about that,’’ Marando said.

“The local authority has relocated people to unserviced areas, where there are no basic services such as water, sewer reticulation system, electricity and roads,’’ he said.

The community also raised concerns over a man-made oxidation pond, which has been established in the residential area which causes a bad smell in the area. They say this is posing as a health risk and a danger to their livelihoods and they fear that in the near future it will spill into the main river were some community members fetch water for domestic use. “The office of the CEO is not open to the public or the community which resides in Divundu for enquiries or for their concerns to be addressed. Therefore we require these matters to be resolved in an amicable way and we will be very glad if our complaints and concerns are taken into consideration by your office honourable governor,’’ he said.

Mukwe constituency councillor Damian Maghambayi received the petition on behalf of the governor and defended the local authority saying people are not being honest, as many had been paid for the land they gave up.

“As I’m speaking I have the records of the people compensated and on 12 May more people were compensated, what you are saying that the village council is not doing its work and that you are not being compensated, we really need to go deeper and find out what really transpired because the records at my disposal indicate that people have been receiving compensation, you must also understand that the payment for compensation does not come from the village council, the council submits the names to ministry of urban and rural development and they transfer the funds when available to council to effect payment,’’ he
said.

Maghambayi assured the community that compensation is on going and those who have not yet been paid will get paid in due course.