Maravi

Officials in local government, lands most corrupt - Forrie

Officials in local government, lands most corrupt - Forrie
By Fridah Nkonde and Selina Nyirenda
Wed 06 June 2012, 13:23 CAT

MINISTRY of Local Government and Housing deputy minister Forrie Tembo says some officials in his ministry and the ministry of Lands are the most corrupt. And the deputy minister said Siavonga district council director of works and the district planning officer have been suspended for incompetence.

Tembo said in an interview yesterday, that most officials in the ministries of local government and lands were the ones who facilitate for the corrupt activities in land allocation.

"I am in Southern Province right now investigating how some people have been acquiring land. To say the truth, it is worrying to see how huge pieces of land are being given out in most parts of Southern Province," Tembo said.

He said it was a scandal how some officials in both the ministry of lands and local government were selling land to people without proper documentation.

Tembo said preliminary investigations clearly showed that officials in both the ministry of lands and local government were involved in the fraudulent sell of land.

He said government was not going to sit back and relax because there were a lot of people involved.

Tembo said council officers implicated in illegal land allocation should be handed over to the investigative wings.

He said there were a lot of abnormalities in the way land was being sold and that government was in the process of coming up with a report to expose all those that had been involved in corrupt activities.

He said no interviews and offers of land would be done until all outstanding issues were resolved and completed.

"What we have found out is that most of these officials in both the ministry of lands and local government are collaborating with briefcase businessmen and are conniving with them to take the responsibility of being their agents for the huge pieces of plots that they have acquired fraudulently," he said.

Tembo gave an example of a piece of land belonging to The University of Zambia in Monze that had been demarcated by someone who claimed to have bought it from one of the officials in the ministry of local government and housing.

"The same man even produced fake documents. I am saying fake because the papers were not from the council," he said.

Labels: CORRUPTION, FORRIE TEMBO, LOCAL GOVERNMENT

posted by MrK @ 2:47 PM