Online Reporter
Trust Freddy
Herald Correspondent
EPWORTH local authority has mapped out plans to relocate about 16 000 households settled on ecologically sensitive wetlands and unzoned areas, as Government and municipal authorities step up a drive to end illegal land developments and regularise informal settlements.
The board has since launched an enumeration exercise targeting affected households while awaiting central government approval of its Master Plan to unlock space for orderly relocation.
Speaking on the sidelines of a full council meeting held yesterday at the local authority offices, Epworth Local Board Town Secretary Dr Wilton Mhanda said council is currently discouraging further construction of illegal structures on wetlands and unzoned land.
“We have about plus or minus 16 000 households on wetlands or unplanned areas,” Dr Mhanda said.
“Currently, what we are doing is to discourage any further development on wetlands or on unplanned areas.
“We have enumerated those people who have been settling on those wetlands for quite some time. What we are looking forward to is the approval of our Master Plan so that we can create space to relocate them from wetlands or any other unplanned areas so that they can settle in new areas where it’s approved and where there could be some services which are actually acceptable.”
Dr Mhanda issued a warning to home-seekers against dealing with illegal land developers, commonly referred to as land barons, who prey on vulnerable residents through fraudulent land sales.
He added that the Epworth Local Board remains the sole legal authority empowered to administer and allocate housing land within the local board’s area of jurisdiction.
