The mayor for the Ongwediva Town Council, Angelina Angula, has exclusively disclosed to Eagle FM that a woman (name withheld) in the Oshinyadhila Village community sold a piece of land without the Ongwediva Town Council’s approval.
Angula said her office cautioned the woman against the sale before she sold the plot but she was adamant that the land belonged to her.
The mayor also said the plot did not in fact belong to the woman but belonged to the estate of a deceased relative.
The matter has now spilled into the courts where the 15 are battling to save their structures they had erected on the disputed land.
Some of the structures have, however, been demolished.
A spokesperson for the aggrieved 15, Walde Hatutale, told Eagle FM that the woman had taken them to the village headman who permitted the sale.
However, Angula said the headman had no authority to sell land to anyone, adding that the woman should compensate the 15.
“The lady is the one who knows because the land was for the family, it was not for her. The land is for the town and she has no right to sell the land. I advised her before, and she was just refusing. At the time I was advising her she was supposed to cooperate and not to continue selling so that I would help her.
“Now she went beyond until she started selling. I intervened in the beginning when she had only two to three people. And the owner of the place, I think it is the deceased or something like that, and the other family… she just took her own decision,” said the mayor.
Angula said this was a criminal offence which was being deliberated on by the town council to take further action.
“We are waiting for people who know the law to pronounce themselves. IF these people had not built concrete structures, we would have compensated. Even the headman knew. In our case the headman, Tate Kayupa told her clearly that she has no right to sell the land even Tate Kayupa has no right to sell the land,” she said.
Pressed on what she was going to do to the 15 families, Angula said, “If you go there on an illegal basis, we just let the law take its course. They knew before that they were not supposed to put concrete.”
