Mabwepande Plot Allocation Halted

ALLOCATION of plots to last year's flood victims in Dar es Salaam at Mabwepande area has been halted pending compensation of over 2.8bn/- to current owners of the land in the area to relocate."We have hitherto allocated some 582 plots but we have halted the exercise as the owners of the rest of the land need to be compensated first and the compensation is estimated to cost 2.8bn/-," said the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, Mr Said Mecky Sadiki.
Mr Sadiki said in an interview with the 'Daily News' in Dar es Salaam on Sunday that only a few owners of the land taken by the government at Mabwepande area were compensated.
"Taking land by the government is one thing and compensating the owners of the land is another thing and thus we are stuck until we make payments through the Prime Minister's Office," he said.
Mr Sadiki, however, declined to mention the exact number of the victims to be allocated with plots but noted that many are yet to get plots.
"The intention is to move all lowland dwellers in the city to Mabwepande, therefore the waiting list is still huge, I am not in a position to say exactly how many people are yet to get plots but the number is significantly huge," he said.
Floods in December, last year led to the death of over 40 people and over 5,000 families were displaced and property and infrastructure worth billions of shillings was damaged. Mr Sadiki had recently warned people who are clandestinely returning to the flood prone areas in the guise of not being allocated plots at Mabwepande were doing so at their own risk.
"My office has received reports of people returning to the lowland areas that were hit by floods. None of them should expect any assistance should anything of the sort happen again," he said.
The RC noted that efforts to provide new homes at Mabwepande to all the genuine victims were being made and the target was to see that people are duly compensated.
"We are taking precautions before demolishing the houses. The government needs to verify genuine victims before compensating them. As soon as all the genuine victims have been compensated we will go ahead and demolish all the houses in these areas," he said. The 1979 master plan for Dar es Salaam City earmarked the lowlands as dangerous places for human habitation.
(Shared by Dairly News)