THE move to own the land property commonly known as Finaughty by the Katima Mulilo Town Council without considering the families of the late Bill Finaughty who are claiming for the ownership and compensation from the government should be otherwise be taken with extreme caution.
We have seen with our two eyes that dating from the 1960’s the land was under cultivation by the first white man (Finaughty) who was the successful businessman who established his businesses in that area in question and, in particular he has an interest to develop the area into a useful property that helped the people of the Caprivi Strip at the time and many people were employed to assist their families out of that.
What we need to know is that we should not ignore or keep aside the history of our town and the region in general. For the last five years the grandchildren of Finaughty have been asking for this but nothing is happening to consider their out-cry.
Of recent, we have seen our government stepping in with interest to utilise the same land, which is fertile by embarking on with farming projects, but all did not prosper.
They came in with their projects that could have been created jobs to all our people with food security but all were turned down, both the Katima Council and Caprivi Council have been given mandate to take the affairs of this disputed land by identifying an investor who could bring in food to the town but all to know avail.
Other project was erected to plough and produce renewable fuel on the plants such as Jatropha and caster and other perishable agricultural products, but all did not bear any fruits, the seeds that could be used to produce fuel such as diesel were ripped and later could not be located were the fuel could be pumped or melt.
At this time around the land which is comprised of buildings that is claimed to belong to Namibia Development Corporation that this demarcated area (Finaughty ) it has been removed from Kongola Constituency by the delimitation commission in 2005 as part and parcel of Katima Mulilo Town Council which is currently claiming for the ownership and again not in position to have the title deed.
We have been informed that grandchildren are in position of the executorship letter issued by his Royal Highness Chief George Simasiku Mamili of the Mafwe Tribe which states that the land belongs to them.
The history cannot repeat itself but we cannot deny that Mr.Finaughty left the country in fear of persecution since he was a SWAPO activist during apartheid regime.
We should not forget that he was a hero and an investor who also inter-married the black community as in the past no white was allowed to marry a black person but with all these, Finaughty broke the silence by leaving his offspring who are now claiming that they are discriminated in the new free nation that has ratified fundamental freedoms from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Therefore, they(finaughty family) deserve the right to be compensated or own the land property.
However in Caprivi, people are still being neglected of their things, we have or still watching other capital projects that started by government by-passing rural dwellers who are next and giving others instead of first giving the people who are near. For example rural electrification in Caprivi has left people who are living in the land where the source of energy (power station ) has been erected.
Loading …