By Staff Reporter
CHAIRPERSON of the newly formed Mafwe Youth Forum has urged residents of the region to unite and denounce all forms of tribalism.
Mr. Linus Matongo, chairperson of the forum, suggests that his organisation was formed to unite all youth of the region in sharing the land equally.
He is calling the Katima Mulilo Town Council to intervene in the allocation of land, not to allow residents of the town to own more than two plots, as this will deprive others who do not have any land.
“ We don’t want a situation where one person is owning over 5 plots or 20 houses while the majority of our people are still living under poverty, many of our people are landless” he said
He added that the plots should not only be sold to those with money, regardless with their status, but each should posses with the maximum of two plots for residential and a maximum of 3 plots for businesses.
He alleged that people are only getting plots in town, only when they are with the well-connected individuals.
He appealed to the Town Council not to extend the town to neighbouring villages surrounding the town such as Musanga, Chefuzwe and Liselo, instead of developing the land within the town, which was then left by residents in decades ago.
“Imagine, if the town council is extending the town, it has to firstly compensate the people”
Mr. Matongo also called the Katima Council to demolish the informal settlement of Makalabani west, which is located at the industrial area of the town, and this should be therefore allocated to the business sector.
He is advocating for youth empowerment for the youth to start-up their own capital projects, as most of the young people are unemployed, he wants youth to be trained in life skills training to keep the youth busy to help themselves.
“ We have a deadly tribalism in Caprivi and I believe all these because of unequally sharing of resources, much of our land now has been taken but we don’t have a voice, Caprivi was changed to Zambezi whereby many people were not supporting it, but it just went because we are not united, and now Caprivi region was reduced, if they felt that Kavango is too big to become two regions they could have given other parts like Mpungu to Ohangwena, instead of reducing the Caprivi region because I for see our population is growing ,our people will need land , and that land if is taken away the land that we supposed to take our people there, so this is one of the issues of tribalism, is also one thing we suppose to do away , we are all one, Subia ,Mayeyi Mafwe and Totela”
He warned some of the political leaders not to disunite the people according to tribal grounds in getting their positions.
The youth activist also requested the political parties to keep an eye when endorsing the list of its candidates on the local authority elections to bring literate people with skills in special fields.
According to him, since the inception of the forum, it has advocated for the illegal fencing off of the road network of subsistence farmers of Liselo and Chantuu after the construction of the newly police camp at Nova Base in the Liselo Area and the evictions of former Katima Farm workers, which is under the jurisdictions of the Mafwe Traditional Authority.
Mafwe Youth Forum Chairperson further called on all the young people in the region to unite together under his forum, which he promises it will change its name to Caprivi or Zambezi Youth Forum.
Katima Mulilo Town Council was not reached for feedback.
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