Lukuvi now overturns Prof Tibaijuka’s decisions on Kigamboni new city

Dar es Salaam. Residents of six wards in Kigamboni area who have been in a dispute with the government over a plan to repossess their land to pave the way for a modern city were relieved after they were told that the plan has been shelved.

Newly appointed minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development, Mr William Lukuvi, yesterday announced the residents would not be forced out of their land.

The residents of Kigamboni, Tungi. Mji-Mwema, Vijibweni, Kibada and part of Somangila were sitting on borrowed time as the goverment wanted them out to construct Kigamboni New City Project under an arm called Kigamboni Development Agency.

They had fallen out with Mr Lukuvi’s sacked predecessor Prof Anna Tibaijuka whose several efforts to solve the dispute failed to yield any fruits and delayed any plans for investment in the area by reported multinational companies and institutions. The people had also spanned attempts to buy shares in the agency.

Yesterday, however, there was a sigh of relief when Mr Lukuvi said the government had no intention of evicting them and announced that a special desk will be set there to issue them with title deeds for their pieces of land.

He boldly vowed to change a circular by his predecessor Prof Tibaijuka prohibiting the residents from  building permanent structures on their respective pieces of land.

The circular had led to the stoppage of the issuance of title deeds, pending disputed compensation. The residents feared the agency would acquire their land cheaply and sell it exorbitantly to the would be investors.

But now, Mr Lukuvi says the people themselves will decide in a free buyer-seller arrangement if they wished to sell their land or not or enter another agreement with the interested investors.

The minister, who was meeting the complainants as part of his familiarisation of land disputes, said the government would only provide market prices for land.