The Minister of Land, Housing and Housing Development, Jerry Silaa, has said that in order to effectively achieve all land issues, he has come up with a new plan called KKK, which means Planning, Measuring and Possession, with the aim of ensuring that there is no illegal construction that takes place throughout the country and to ban areas of Cities and Municipalities to be sold without assessment.
Minister Slaa said this yesterday at his meeting with Editors and Journalists with the aim of explaining the things he did within 100 days since he was appointed to hold the ministry on September 4, 2023 and the plans they hope to implement while in power.
Minister Slaa has also said that he is satisfied with the implementation of the 12 orders and priorities given by President Samia Suluhu Hassan in this land sector and congratulated the heads of the regions for the good work they have done and has asked them to continue with the work so that we can fulfill the president’s expectations in the land sector.
“I have visited 25 regions of mainland Tanzania to solve land challenges and look at other challenges through the Land Clinic program which has brought great results, we have served many citizens at the same time and we have resolved many disputes and some have left with their documents,” says Silaa.
He said that the clinic started in Dodoma and went to Dar es Salaam and now they have planned it to be held all over the country.
“It is a difficult task, but we must do it. We must solve things that have exceeded the existing ones in the regions, if the leaders of the Ministry are present, it helps to solve the problems quickly.” added Minister Slaa
He has said that after seeing the results of the Clinic, during the days he spent in the Ministry, they have planned to continue the procedure by setting up various centers throughout the country to serve the people and solve their land challenges quickly.
“We expect to set up open centers throughout the country to provide services, at those centers there will be a ‘One stop Centre’ where citizens will get all land services together and there will be officials under the Ministry who will be solving the challenges there and then.”
He says, cameras will be placed at those stations which will monitor the performance including the time that the officials of the Ministry arrive to serve the people and how they deal with their challenges without any obstacles.
“To begin with, we will use the procedure of initial testing which is free of cost and this will be done in areas that have not yet been sent money, we will give those responsibilities to Executives in Streets, Villages and Neighborhoods to measure their areas and after the citizens have been measured and know the necessary costs, they will pay later,” he says.
In addition, at the meeting, Minister Silaa, in ensuring that there is no loss of Government revenue in the sector, announced that from now on the funds for the sale of plots will be managed by the Ministry and will be done electronically to ensure that funds are not lost in the hands of the council.
Also, Minister Silaa banned Local Government Chairmen from being involved in the sale of plots and taking 10 percent of the money from the sale and instead the exercise will be managed by Land Officers.
Another thing that he announced at the meeting, is the start of an exercise to inspect the open spaces that were set aside for social activities, some of which have been leased without following the procedure and are being used commercially. From now on, those spaces will be under the Ministry.
He says that the exercise will continue using companies with integrity, because its stalling, along with other reasons, has been stopped by some companies that lacked integrity, where he says they will take action against companies that violate the procedures, including liquidation.
“The government has planned to give money to develop it starting from Dar es Salaam and if in Agriculture there is BBT (Building a Better Tomorrow) and we want to have our own BBT, young people with land professions in their streets can get work to get rid of this exercise that will take place for three months and after that they will be Agents and they will be paid for that work,” says Waziri Silaa.
He says that along with getting rid of the formalization exercise, for this year 2024 they will put a lot of force in the areas that are said to be extreme for land conflicts that have been caused by illegal sales made by invaders.
“I urge the people to stop buying local land especially from invaders, they should know that invaders are criminals like other criminals”, he said
Minister Silaa says that in order to ensure that they quickly deal with the land challenges apart from establishing an ‘App’ called ‘ardhi kiganjani’, they have established new land Regions so that every citizen can get services where they are, which will help reduce the costs of the person traveling long distances to follow services at the same time and save time and reduce congestion at land offices.
