Issues of land grab are a national emergency: Chakwera must act now!
As Nyasa Times, we are deeply concerned thought immensely not surprised with media revelations regarding shady and suspicious deals surrounding continued sale of large tracts of land to foreigners especially in urban areas.
With are concerned because with each passing day, Malawians keep losing control of their cities as large tracts of land is being sold to non-Malawians.
On the same note, we are not surprised because stories of land grabs have always graced our doorsteps and, in all these years, our authorities have always chosen to, strategically, turn a blind eye.
If you check with either the Ministry of Lands, or Housing, even with City Council officials; you will shudder to note the scale at which prime land in our cities—especially Lilongwe, Mzuzu, Blantyre and Zomba, has been sold off to non-Malawians.
Fellow Malawians, we don’t own these cities; we are visitors and, of course, strangers in these cities we brag to be our own. We are renting in our own cities. Eventually, as they keep buying off piece by piece of our cities, one day they will unite and chase us away.
Is this the kind of Malawi we are preparing for our kids?
Well, we understand that Malawi is a multi-racial nation and it belongs to everyone who legally lives in it. Such an argument presupposes that anyone who lives in Malawi and has the capacity can buy up and own land anywhere in this great republic, even cities.
The folly in such an argument is akin to letting a person who scored 20 points at a remote Community Day Secondary School in Nsanje to compete for the only remaining space at the university with a person who scored 8 points from Saint Andrews High School. Can fairness be achieved in that context?
No.
Every Malawian wants to, at least, own a piece of prime land in any of the cities. The reason most Malawians don’t own such land is because we have corrupt governments that protect the interest of few rich people, mostly foreigners – including Nigerians, Burundians and other Africans, at the expense of their people. This is why most land deals, as exposed by the media, stinks of corruption.
This needs to be reversed.
President Lazarus Chakwera needs to treat the issue of land as an emergency. He needs to institute an inquiry, now, to establish the truth regarding these land deals.
We need new intergrated land management system. There should be physical door to door audit of all Malawi Housing Corporation plots.
Sale of MHC land and plots should be carried by landlord – Ministry of Land. The mandate of MHC is to build houses, thats it.
All deals that were concluded through cutting corners must be reversed. Further, Chakwera need to put deliberate measures to ensure that Malawians, yes black Malawians, also own a share of their cities.
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The problem is people here act like their the government, Malawians stop being jelous of others, if you work hard god will too give you. Look at the comments of nyasa times, you guys are jelous of the foreigners, in the real world its competitive. Work hard, and also stop jealousy over your other fellow Malawians. And please dont belive everything nyasa writes
Food for thought for the government.
This article is inciting hatred towards the minority Definitely investigations should be made if there is any controversy of any plot. been given or acquired illegally. Once the titles are legitimately given with genuine offer letters, it’s impossible to bring a law which is Retrospective to snatch away plots given legally The other point is that, how do Govt identify a foreigner, Many foreigners who have stayed in this country are no more foreigners as they have become citizens of Malawi. They have applied for citizenship and have acquired the citizenship genuinely and relinquished there country of origin/born All developed… Read more »
The other issue is that up to now these things are processed manually without any electronic databases. Check with City Councils, etc you will find that there is no proper record-keeping and file management to be able to properly document land in Malawi. The biggest problem is that officers prefer bribes rather than following laid down procedures in all these transactions. Land is acquired dubiously and sold to dubious individuals. There should be top down and bottom up review of the entire land management process in Malawi to properly re-define and re-allocate to all Malawians and those responsible should be… Read more »
Now I understand the reason why these accounts clerics are so rich in government. How much is a salary for these people? Check these clerics how they got so rich in the Lands department. Probe everyone there. Rich Thieves while officers are poor.
It’s about time the land issue was resolved.
We need a complete and thorough audit of every piece of land to establish clear lawful acquisition.
In cases where there is a dispute of ownership, the courts have to resolve the issue before ownership is recorded in a party’s name, which includes taking back land that was unlawfully
acquired.
Additionally, not every piece of land should be up for sale. Some land should be reserved for indigenous people who are unable to purchase land due to lack of resources.
And please shut down the trend of selling prime land to foreigners.
Its funny that Chakwera is mentioned in this article which I just believe its because he is the President of the Republic of Malawi. Now what do you want him to do? You see the type Journalists we have in this country? It will be you the same coming here saying Chakwera must trade carefully with foreigners, I hate the way we Malawians thinks, we don’t have a single day that we can say this is what we want let’s do it together, but this one go this direction and that one is just carrying his own cross going that… Read more »
Ogula malo ndi amene ali ndi ndalama
This is a ridiculous article. There is no such thing. If you can afford it buy the land. There is so much land. No one is stopping you from buying.
Mr lipapa how could force yourself into a meeting at state house when u r not wanted.it clear shows that you are a cheap political bootlicker.i was gonna give u respect if u had said all these when dpp was in power.but u were too greedy.ur main interest was ur personal business.