Chief Chamuka of the Lenje-speaking people of Central Province says his chiefdom will in the next 10 years attain the equal per cent ownership of land by both men and women.

In an interview with News Diggers! Chief Chamuka said his chiefdom would preserve the land as its mandate so that all the people could have a share.

“In some villages, we have 50 per cent-50 per cent land ownership for both men and women, while in some villages we have 70per cent men and 30per cent women but we are working out strategies to ensure that we reach 50-50 per cent land ownership in the coming 10 years. In short, 10 years from now, we shall attain a situation where we will have 50 per cent land ownership by men and 50 percent by women,” Chief Chamuka said.

“Tradition leaders have a role to oversee and ensure that customary land is properly managed whilst working in collaboration with the government. The chiefs through their head persons allocate land to the people of Zambia who come to ask for land in line with the village development Act. So our role is to preserve the land so that all the people who come into our land, the people who are already in our villages, the children who are born can have a share, that is our role, to ensure that this land is properly kept and given to our people accordingly.”

The traditional leader also said his Chiefdom had started doing customary certification where land owners were issued with customary certificates to secure their land.

“In our area we have a success story which is that both women and men have access to land and we are even doing customary certification where each owner of a piece of land has a customary certificate to give security to land system in the chiefdom. All the people are happy with the way that they are allocated with the land and the way the traditional authority protects this land from being taken away by other people with bad intentions,” said Chief Chamuka.