The Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA) has observed […]

The Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA) has observed that purchasing land in a sub-serviced area can have long-term consequences that include displacement. Unserviced land is one that lacks basic utilities like drinking water, wastewater or sewer connections.

 Electricity, telecommunications and proper legal road access. In most cases the local authority, under state land powers, initiates services for a particular locality and numbers the plots for advertisement.

Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times (ZBT), Land Alliance Executive Director Patrick Musole urged that there have been several recorded cases of disputes and challenges with accessing amenities in most cases.

 “The problem that we have with unserviced areas is that people build without planning, and when this happens, where there is a fire, the fire brigade can’t access it due to no proper roads and other facilities. Buying unserviced is problematic because there are no services,” he added.

Musole further observed that when the government surfaces to normalise the situation, it becomes very costly and ends up demolishing the properties and in turn compensates the affected parties. Usually by offering them alternative land or building them houses in an effort to create room for amenities and roads.

 “We encourage that people buy land which is already serviced, because it will not be inconvenient and it will be easy to connect to services, and land that is not yet planned is problematic.”

Article by Samuel Mutale