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Mozambique: Bilene municipality threatens to revoke over 10,000 DUATs within 60 days
2:46 CAT | 05 Nov 2025
Photo: O País
The municipality of the tourist town of Bilene, in Gaza province, threatens to revoke more than 10,000 Land Use and Benefit Rights (DUAT) titles within 60 days. These DUATs cover areas that have been completely abandoned for over ten years across the same number of Bilene neighbourhoods. Bilene Mayor, Mufundisse Chilengue, says the measure aims to restore the image of the municipality.
There are more than 10,000 vacant plots and abandoned constructions which, besides disfiguring the scenic beauty and attraction of Bilene beach, serve as hiding places for wrongdoers and all sorts of animals, as well as garbage dumps for almost a decade.
The situation is described as critical in ten neighbourhoods, where residents demand concrete measures from municipal authorities to restore Bilene’s image.
“In this neighbourhood, our main concern is people coming to build because it is full of mato—uncontrolled wild grass and bushes. We are not living well with the thicket here. People should occupy the land because we are suffering from snakes,” a resident told O País.
Complaints reached the president of the municipal town of Bilene, Mufundisse Chilengue, who admitted the situation is worsened by the weakness of the Code of Municipal Regulations., which does not provide concrete penalties for the non-use of land.
“There are a total of ten neighbourhoods where we have these problems. We allocate land plots and they remain abandoned until now. They are not being used,” said Mufundisse Chilengue.
The Mayor guarantees that the municipality will resort to land legislation to impose discipline, and does not rule out the possibility of reversing these plots back to the municipality.
“We have many requests for land plots that we do not have. Until now, no one has weighed in.”
“On average, there are between 5,000 and 10,000 plots that we allocated, and people are not using the land. The law says the land belongs to the State. We will revoke the DUATs of all people who are not making use of the land,” warned the Mayor.
The Mayor of Bilene also considers that most of these abandoned plots and ruins belong to individuals who persist in disregarding municipal appeals, hence the promise of stricter measures in the next 60 days.
Source: O País
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