A Pugu resident draws water from a pond in Msimbazi valley at the weekend. PHOTO|VENANCE NESTORY
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The Minister of State in the Vice President’s Office for Union Affairs and Environment, Mr January Makamba, said that out of the 774 houses which were constructed along valleys, only twenty were found to belong to residents who held proper title deeds.
Dar es Salaam. The government said yesterday it would provide new settlements to only twenty residents of Buguruni suburb who held title deeds for some of the houses that were pulled down during the ongoing demolition exercise in the city.
The Minister of State in the Vice President’s Office for Union Affairs and Environment, Mr January Makamba, said that out of the 774 houses which were constructed along valleys, only twenty were found to belong to residents who held proper title deeds.
He told residents whose houses were destroyed that the government was now revising the procedures guiding the demolition process and hinted that it would now begin issuing notices to the owners of the houses before demolishing them.
“We (the government) will also track down officials who unlawfully issued title deeds to some of the residents and the law will take its course,’’ he said yesterday, soon after he made an impromptu visit to the areas where houses have either been demolished or have been earmarked for demolition.
Mr Makamba visited Kinondoni Mkwajuni suburb, where told residents that the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) was drawing up plans to put up a public structure in the area that has been cleared.
Without revealing what exactly would be built in the cleared areas, Mr Makamba promised that NEMC would undertake the construction of the new and environmentally-friendly structure.
He also assured the parents of pupils whose homes were destroyed in the operation, that the government would transfer them to other schools which would be closer to their new homes.
A local leader in the area, Mr Erasto Mayani, told The Citizen about two weeks ago that over 70 pupils would miss school in the next academic year, as a consequence of the demolition process, whereby, besides being rendered homeless, their study materials were destroyed, misplaced or stolen.
Officials from the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, in collaboration with the NEMC and the Kinondoni Municipality, will continue with the demolition operation for houses that were unlawfully constructed in the Msimabzi Valley.
Last week, some 600 Msimbazi Valley residents rushed to court, where they successfully got a court injunction to stop the demolition pending the determination of the main cause.
The residents claimed that they had been living in the area for over 60 years, possessed valid residential permits and had been paying taxes.
