CATHOLIC Commission for Justice and Peace coordinator says government should expedite the land policy enactment in order to facilitate equitable distribution of land in Zambia.

Speaking on Yatsani Radio’s the Platform Programme yesterday, CCJP coordinator Agnes Mumba said this would cut illegalities in land administration.

“There should be proper guidelines; that’s why we are talking about the policy, who gives what land? What type of land is supposed to be administered by the council and what type of land is supposed to be administered by the Ministry of Lands? And if there is a proper policy and proper guidelines to be followed, we wouldn’t have all these conflicts and deaths. We are urging the government to put a proper policy in place so that the people of Zambia can be protected and the people of Zambia can be given land equitably,” Mumba said.

Mumba said it was unfortunate that party cadres went away with instigating land wrangles.

“If a cadre allocates land usually they charge, they don’t just allocate land free of charge, and people say we paid money to a cadre, where does that money go because that land does not belong  to a cadre, it means you are selling by false pretence which by law is criminal, you are stealing from the government, you are selling land which is not yours, and you are pocketing the money but unfortunately, we have never  seen any cadre who has been incarcerated for selling land illegally. Cadres are not allowed, not even councilors they are not the rightful people to allocate land,” said Mumba.

And CCJP member George Chimembe attributed corruption in land administration to political interference.

“There is a lot of political interference which breeds corruption, somebody who is rich is favored. You see, there was some land near Lusaka Primary School which was contentious. They said this land belongs to Ministry of Education but we saw it was given out to some investors, it was taken over even the millennium village that one, that’s land belonging to Lusaka Girls and it was taken over, and there was political interference, look at this road Alick Nkhata road ,we had a lot of space on the sides of the road which we could even have expanded  to make it dual  so that it caters for increased traffic, but because of the politics and  interference Lusaka City Council cannot do anything to a politician,” said Chimembe.