The ongoing tearing down of buildings and other structures now in progress in Dar es Salaam violates the rights of victims and is a direct result of weaknesses in the governance machinery, according to a cross-section of analysts.
Land experts, lawyers and human rights activists interviewed by this paper yesterday said problems with surveying, poor enforcement of the laws and corruption in government circles constituted the explanation for illegal construction in the city and elsewhere in Tanzania.
Godfrey Massay, programmes coordinator for land-based investments at the Tanzania Natural Resources Forum said: “The government is to blame for the construction of illegal structures, especially those developed in urban areas because it is the one solely responsible for issuing building permits.”
“Even after the construction of the structures before the very eyes of the same government in unauthorised or restricted areas, people are connected to services such as water and electricity by government agencies, making the State number one accomplice in the whole saga,” he said.Massay argued that the respective State agencies were to blame “for leading people putting up structures in unauthorised areas into believing that doing so was perfectly all right and that was why they were connected to the said services”.
However, he recommended that “some form of sectoral review be made to ensure better coordination among the government entities concerned and therefore avoid such contradictions in the future”.
Massay also blamed dishonest officials from the government’s Lands department known to issue permits for construction in restricted areas, saying: “The demolition of illegally built structures should go alongside taking appropriate disciplinary and other action against all such people officials”.
He added, though, that he was convinced that the demolitions now under way in “genuinely” restricted areas such as river beds, beaches and water sources were justified “because the law is crystal clear on the matter”.
“Even before the enactment of the Environmental Management Act of 2004 we had laws governing the environment and construction within 60 metres of restricted areas was prohibited. The law clearly stated as much, so this is not really a new development,” explained Massay.
Yefred Myenzi, executive director of Tanzania’s Land Rights Research and Resources Institute, meanwhile blamed the whole issue of “the government’s inability to provide land-related services without undue delay”.
He said many ordinary people have a hard time accessing land-related services such as surveying, mapping and registration of title “and, in desperation, end up constructing structures in restricted areas”.
He likewise pointed an accusing finger at Lands department officials “bribed into issuing building permits in restricted areas”.
“Dishonest lands officials have been freely issuing fake permits and, as a result, when people presented with the documents become comfortable and think that they are in safe hands and can proceed with construction,” he said.
Myenzi recommended that the government should favourably consider cases where construction in unauthorised areas does not really endanger lives, this including areas whose use the government (President) had powers to review.
Prof Alphonce Kessy of Ardhi University meanwhile said the operation (demolitions) was characterised by poor arrangements that render it inhuman, adding: “A really caring government would have first ensured that people whose houses were to be pulled down were provided with temporary shelter for a specific number of days pending their relocation”.
He said the government ought to have conducted an inventory of the number of would-be victims of the operation, complete with all their earthly belongings, before bulldozers went into business.
The professor said the Land Acquisition Act of 2001 and the World Bank’s Resettlement Policy demand that the government compensate both landlords and tenants, adding that it was worth noting that at least 75 per cent of Dar es Salaam residents live in rented houses.
“There should be temporary shelter for the victims to live for at least one month… Additionally, they ought to be served with demolition notices in good time,” he said, noting that the Land Acquisition Act of 2001 talks of compensation to all would-be evictees having lived in the respective areas for at least 12 years running.
Prof Kessy said the city’s municipal councils of Ilala, Kinondoni and Temeke had miserably failed to put up beacons in all dangerous areas, including river banks, clearly restricting construction.
He said that, to forestall a recurrence of similar incidents, the government ought to plant trees at all high tide water mark areas.
Tanzania Human Rights Defenders executive Onesmo ole Ngurumwa explained that, even where the country’s laws were violated, “the evictees deserve compensation, as some will have lived in the affected areas for decades”.
“Consideration for the importance of placing a premium on respect for human rights demands that these hapless people should have been provided with alternative shelter,” he said.
He talked of the likelihood of people who had legally acquired and developed land also “finding themselves thrown out for no fault of theirs”.
“This operation is fraught with daunting challenges because it is being implemented too fast for comfort… We are worried that it might affect people who legally own land and buildings or other permanent structures,” said the THRD executive.
In November last year the government started pulling down illegally constructed structures in Dar es Salaam, effectively rendering hundreds of people homeless.
It recently suspended the demolition for two weeks, a grace period that ended yesterday, with the operation due to resume today in the river valley stretching from Kinondoni municipality to Pugu in Coast Region. The authorities have declared that more than 8,000 houses will be flattened.
According to the Dar es Salaam master plan which has just come off the drawing board and is scheduled to be take effect in June, more than 3.6 million Dar es Salaam residents will be rendered homeless.
The Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development has called on residents Dar es Salaam resident need to line themselves up for mass evictions when the new master plan comes into effect “because only 20 per cent live in surveyed areas”.
A senior official with the ministry official told this paper on Sunday that the new master plan would have a lot of changes compared to the previous one which was in use from 1979 and 1999.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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