Mbezi land dispute: Tanroads accused of court order violation

The judgment by the High Court of Tanzania (Land Division) giving residents of Mbezi area along Dar es Salaam’s Morogoro highway the right to stay undisturbed after winning a case is being tempered with by the Works ministry through the Tanzania National Roads Agency (Tanroad).

Tanroad is currently demolishing structures including residential houses along the strip to pave the way for construction of a special park for lorries adjacent to the highway.

The residents are blaming Tanroads for starting to demolish their residences while it has not fulfilled the conditions given by the High Court Land Division.

Last year the High Court declared in its ruling that residents were lawful owners of the land.

The ruling by Judge S.B. Bongole said in part, “All in all, I hereby declare the plaintiffs lawful owners of the land in dispute and the notice issued to them by the defendants dated August 11, 2004 are annulled accordingly. Should the defendants be interested with the land in dispute, they are hereby ordered to comply with the directives I have given.”

The High Court ordered the defendants (government) that if it was interested with the disputed land it should compensate the residents by filling village land form No 15 and present the same to relevant authorities for action.

It also ordered that if the government is interested with the land in dispute as a road reserve, it should give notice of intention to transfer the village land to reserve land by filling village form No 8 in compliance with Section 4 of the Village Land Act, 1999, Act No 5 of 1999 and the Village Land Act Regulations of 2002.

Furthermore the court ruled that the villagisation process disregarded the Highway Ordinance of 1967 and particularly the Government Notice (GN) number 161 of 1967 which become invalid to the extent of inconsistency with Section 15 of the Village Land Act.

It said that Sections 15 and 16 of the Village Land Act with regard to the case, expressly extinguished rights and interests vested in the land in dispute by GN number 161 of 1967 and confirmed and created validity to the residents who were allocated the same by the relevant authorities during and after the villagisation process.

Speaking to The Guardian yesterday in Dar es Salaam, Doroth Terry resident of Mbezi Luis who has been ordered to vacate by today said Tanroads was going against the court directives because she has not yet been compensated.

Terry said that she has been living in the area for 30 years and that the demolition done by Tanroads Dar es Salaam is in form of harassment.

She said that the High Court ruling was on May, 31, 2013 but Tanroads was going on with demolitions of people’s houses that they are in the road reserve.

She added for more than 10,000 houses are going to be affected with the ongoing demolition being implemented by Tanraoads.

The residents’ legal adviser, advocate Benitho Mandele said that the demolitions are carried out due to contradictions created by the Town and Urban Planning Act and the Highway Act.

Mandele clarified that the Town and Urban Planning Act states that the road reserve should be 30 meters from the centre of the road while in the Highways Act road reserve should be 121 meters from the centre of the road.

Advocate Mandele said that the case has caused the residents to fail developing their plots for fear of being evicted.

“Mbezi residents see their land as valueless because they cannot develop it by building business premises. They cannot also go for bank loans although they have title deeds because everybody and every financial institution understands that areas is reserved for road construction which is not the fact,” Mandele said.

Reached for comment, Dar es Salaam Tanroads Manager, Julius Ndyamukama told The Guardian that currently the government is using the Road Act of 2007 to set road reserve which holds that 121 meters should be measures from the centre of the road.

He said that Tanropads cannot seek demolition permit from the court while the area that it wants to demolish belongs to the government.

Ndyamukama added that the court ruling does not apply to the area where the residents are complaining about.

He admitted that demolition was going on whereby some residents have accepted, while others are still resisting and are requesting help from the Regional Commissioner so that Tanroads may not continue with the exercise in their areas.

Efforts to reach the Works Minister and his deputy minister proved futile. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN