MUFINDI: NINETY-PERCENT of the villages in Mufindi District in Iringa Region have no land reserves for investment by various governmental operations, Mufindi District Land Officer, Simon Mbago explained.
He said that land conflicts occurring in villages in the district is the lack of land reserves for development activities and investments.
Mbago made the statement at a debate held yesterday in the village of Usokami in Kibengu Ward in the district.
He said that the conflicts will end if applicable villages will allocate land for development activities.
This is the seventh village land conflict dialogue since the start debating organized by a non-governmental organization Tanzania Grassroots Oriented Development (TAGRODE) in Iringa region aimed at searching for how to make things in order to reduce conflicts over land in the districts of Iringa and Mufindi in Iringa Region.
The organization in partnership with Participatory Ecological Land Use Management Tanzania (PELUM Tanzania), through the funding from USAID, runs the debates in villages Ikuka, Mbigili, Mawala, Mawambala and Masalali for Kilolo District.
And in villages Usokami, Ugesa, Makungu, Magunguli and Isaula in Mufindi District, through its CEGO project, involving rural communities in terms of the accountability of village land.
The land officer went on to say that villages should set aside land for developmental such as building hospitals, schools and setting up investment areas.
"Most of the villages in Mufindi District does not have land reserves for setting up projects, that forced the said projects into individual lands causing land conflicts ...," he said Mbago.
The district land officer has recommend villages allocate land reserves of so that when the government wants to do any development activities in their respective village projects should to be done in the reserve lands.
He went on to say that any project cannot be invested in village with land disputes or no land reserves but it will move elsewhere in the village with reserve land.
Contributing to the topic in the debate, citizens of Usokami village said that in order to reduce land disputes the government should review the boundaries between village and villages and between district and district because there are some village bordering district boundaries.
The villagers also said that the village government is a source of conflict because some of the leaders who have failed to manage these laws after the decisions made.
They asked the government to review the boundaries of their village along with the village land use plan (VLUP) in order to avoid land conflicts.
For his part, Usokami Village Chairman Franciso Kaguo requested the government to use the law to set aside areas for farmers and herders to avoid conflicts because both groups are interdependent.
Meanwhile, Usokami Village in Mufindi district, Iringa region is highly affected the problem of safe drinking water due to lack of any water project in the village.
Citizens of the village use water from shallow wells and asked the government to provide tap water project in order to save the health of local residents.
They said that all water projects do not work and they have to spend a lot of time to look for water in shallow wells hence economic retardation.
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