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Matola: Criminal charges filed against 17 for sale of land in municipal reserves – Noticias
7:46 CAT | 02 Jul 2021
File - Illustrative photo. [File photo: Noticias]
The municipality of Matola in Maputo province has filed criminal charges against 17 citizens accused of involvement in the occupation and sale of land in places reserved for public infrastructure.
According to José Sambo, councillor for Territorial Planning and Urbanisation in the Matola municipality, the accused, including three municipal employees, posed as technicians and inspectors from that institution.
Councilor Sambo explained that they frequently visited the reserved spaces in various neighbourhoods, especially Tsalala, Nkobe, Sidwava, Nwamatibjana, Matlemele, Ngolhoza and Mucatine, supervising the installation of public infrastructure such as schools, health units, police posts, camps for practicing sports and religious confessions, among other public services.
Sambo said the suspects were attracting customers for the land they sold, enticing people who identified themselves as investors, with whom they would establish partnerships.
“These dishonest persons were looking for buyers, saying they had space for those who needed to invest. They told their customers to install some insignificant infrastructure, such as a porch and stalls to function as markets, in the context of social responsibility,” he commented.
He said that, after pocketing large sums of money, these persons abandoned the investors who then turned to the municipality for regularisation and authorisation to start their activities.
“It is in this process that municipal authorities discovered the illegal sale of reserved spaces,” he explained.
The councillor highlighted that, from 2019 to date, more than 100 sales of municipal reserve land have been identified, 30 of them this year.
In this context, the councillor for Territorial Planning and Urbanization appealed to Matola residents to remain vigilant about reserved spaces, so as to enable development plans to go ahead.
He also urged residents and all those who have interests in that part of the country to go to the Land Planning and Urbanization Council in order to assess the legality of the land plots assigned to them by anyone from outside the municipality.
Source: Noticias
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