SITTING tenants at Itawa Flats and Chinese Housing Complex in Masala Township in Ndola have expressed happiness at President Rupiah Banda’s directive that the houses should immediately be sold to them at fair and reasonable prices.
And some tenants in the defunct United Bus Company of Zambia (UBZ) houses in Ndola said President Banda’s intervention to also sell them the houses came at a time most of them had lost hope.
Itawa Complex Tenants Association chairperson, Brian Kafwimbi said the tenants were happy with the directive to sell them the houses.
“We hope the city council will heed the presidential directive to sell the flats quickly at a fair and reasonable price.
“We will not allow a situation where tenants are evicted by some councillors and council officials who may wish to buy the houses themselves like it has happened before in some parts of the country,” he said.
Mr Kafwimbi said the tenants would settle all the rent arrears before buying the houses and would not tolerate any form of harassment.
Some tenants in the former UBZ houses in Northrise in Ndola said President Banda’s intervention was timely because most of them had lost hope.
The tenants’ representative, Ketty Moyo said most of the house owners who were former UBZ employees had died of depression-related illnesses after losing their jobs and failure by the company, which was liquidated in the 1990s, to pay their terminal benefits.
Ms Moyo said the tenants had over the years been victims of harassment by some civil servants who openly said that they wanted to buy the houses since the tenants were not capable of buying them.
“They have been hiking the prices for most of the houses which were first pegged at K22 million in 1996. In 2009 another offer putting the price at K115 million was released by the Ministry of Finance,” Ms Moyo said.
Luanshya Mine Houses Sitting Tenants chairperson, Clement Kapolyo said he had been expecting Government’s intervention over the differences among Roan Antelope Mining Corporation of Zambia, Grant Thornton and the former miners who disagreed over the high prices offered for the dilapidated houses in Luanshya.
“As former miners we are confident that President Banda, the father of the nation who we have already written to, will see to it that we also benefit from the gesture which is part of the implementation of the Government’s Housing Policy. It is our prayer that the mine houses will be sold to us,” he said.
At a Press briefing in Kitwe on Tuesday, Mr Banda ordered that the Ndola City Council-owned Itawa Flats, which have more than 200 housing units and the Chinese complex, with more than 100 houses, as well as all the housing units belonging to the defunct State-owned UBZ be sold to sitting tenants without fail.
He said after listening to the cries of the tenants who were paying substantial amounts of money in rentals for the houses which were in a deplorable state, the Government, under the home empowerment programme, had decided to sell the housing units.
Mr Banda said he was still studying requests from some former miners on the Copperbelt to have the former Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines-owned houses sold to them.
The president also directed the Lands minister to ensure that title deeds for the former mine houses that had already been sold be issued by August this year.
[ Times of Zambia ]
oh boy!! could this be a kafupi behind the scene??
yup ! it is Titus behind all this. Never the less, Kuya bebele :)>-
#1
#1 & 2! Just appreciate when it is due, whether from Chiluba, Rupiah, Sata or HH. Please this Presidential directive is good to Zambians. Do you want only foreigners and rich persons to own houses? it may be that your low income relative is the one buying one of them.
Be Zambian please!!!
Wabufi Kafupi at work and the bally RB doesn’t even realize it. The tenants should buy the houses and still vote against MMD coz RB thinks he can pull an FTJ move and get away with hoodwinking the electorate!
If they give you money, get it, eat their food, drink their tujilijili, wear their t-shirts when gardening and buy their houses.But when it comes to voting, you are free to vote against them as they think you are all foolish.
This attempt to buy votes should not be allowed as we will see FTJ come back as Prime Minister of the counry
Ofcourse they are happy. zambians normally complani of not getting anything from Government, well here they have
Good! More votes for MMD.
PF will be much weaker by the time RB is done!
In fact, at this rate, PF should enjoy their last days as a leading opposition party and start looking for grade 12 graduate MP’s to replace the uneducated Nsanda’s, GBM’s, etc… that pollute our politics!
Well done RB!
We cant access the CEEC funds because we dont have colateral. By giving us title deeds, we will be able to secure funds and empower ourselves. Some of us are not interested in false miracles of 90 days being peddled by false prophets. We want sustainable empowerment.
Well done!
You’ve got my vote!
My mom in Masala is very happy. She has vowed to wear an MMD chitenge until 2011 when RB gets his 2nd term. Do you know where i can get an RB chitenge for her?
I live in Masala. Is your mom aunty agness Moonga? If so, she is a staunch PF womans league chairperson for our area. I see defections! She has a lot of influence on the ground. She used to be MMD but she jumped to PF in 2006 because Levy neglected us.
We’ll be getting our title deed too so i guess we’ll join the euphoria and give RB his second term next year. This could not have come at a better time!
Yes she is!
She has surely jumped ship.
She and many other ladies who were let down by Levy because he ignored their plight and failed to deliver on the promise made in 2001.
She is going full swing convincing other women to vote for RB & MMD.