Yei paramount chief: dealing with urban land conflict
Interview by Skye Wheeler
YEI, Sudan, June 30, (Gurtong) – Chiefs in the South have always played
a vital role in managing community-held land and major point in the new constitution
of The Council of Leaders of the Traditional Authority of Central Equatoria
State formed last week includes protecting the rights of communities to own
land.
Godson Gaga David, a Kakwa chief from a rural area outside of Yei explained
how his role as chief had been central to the organized reclamation of land
to former refugees returning to his area, often in families larger than when
leaving.
Although South Sudan’s Land Act – which will clarify how urban
and rural land is managed - is still being drafted urban leaders like James
Ramasak Bala who is Yei’s paramount chief are today performing a central
role in how his town is run. He told Gurtong more about his work.
“As far as I am concerned, land here in Yei belongs to the community
and is controlled by the community.
“There are many people coming back to Yei now, from the war. Refugees
from Congo, Uganda, Kenya. Often they come back to their plot and they find
that someone else has occupied it. Mostly it is SPLA soldiers who are on the
plot.
“I simply solve it. In one block of land in the town there are four plots.
I ask the neighbors on the surrounding plots whether that plot belonged to that
family before the war.
“Everyday I am dealing with this issue. I have enough authority to tell
the occupier to go.
“If the owner of the plot is able to refund the money spent by the occupier
on developing the plot or can develop a similar place somewhere else; that is
good. If the owner does not have the money then the occupier is given six months
to stay there to build another place and then he goes. There’s plenty
of land.
“There is no punishment or fine for occupying the land. That was wartime.
“But sometimes the occupier makes unnecessary claims for how much he
spent on the land, sometimes he says a four metre by four metre tukal that only
costs 6,000 dinars cost him 12,000 dinars.
“So then we go to the plot and make our own estimates. Then we can force
the occupier to swear that he spent that much. If he refuses to swear then we
know he is lying”.
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