Gomulira villagers demand Govt intervention in Lin’s dubious land occupation
In a dramatic turn of events a Chinese wildlife convict Lin Yunhua’s daughter has allegedly come in the limelight to process formal registration of her father’s controversial big piece of land he acquired dubiously from the village without the knowledge of chiefs in village headman Gumulira in Lumbazi, Lilongwe.
Chiefs and villagers have since demanded government to intervene in the dubious occupation of the dambo land by Lin claiming , their loss of the land has deprived their economic opportunities, fueled hunger , and robbery among the people .
Chief Gumulira , his deputy Japhet Chimpeni and other villagers on Wednesday told journalists that, Lin who is also answering corruption charges , dubiously bought the dambo land which was used as a source of income for the people in the village.
They said Lin occupied the land for his livestock farming while behind the scenes turning it a base for his illegal wildlife criminal activities .
The chief and others said people used the land land for farming, feed livestock, mine sand, mould bricks and sell them to companies and use the money to meet their basic needs including school fees for their children.
“He illegally occupied the land and established his farm without our knowledge as chiefs, and engaged a chief from different village to issue him ownership documents . He later, appointed the same chief as his farm supervisor for the period he would be in prison .
” Even officials from the ministry of lands were last year surprised how he occupied this big land in question and continued to illegally occupy more land from villagers even if he is prison,” said Gumulira.
He said the ministry of lands officials came to investigate the matter last year following media reports of on land issues between chiefs and Lin, and they gave hope to the people that they would intervene .
He said said while they have been anticipating the ministry’s intervention on the matter , the villagers are surprised that a self claimed Lin’s daughter has recently been facilitating the formal registration of the land .
“We have seen her coming to the farm in company of Lin’s employees and inspecting the prices of land dubious bought by her father from the villagers through his father’s agents .
“We have been told by her father’s agents who accompanies her that she has been going to the ministry of lands , and group village headman Chinoko Kawenga to help her process the formal registration of the land , and we have been warned against speaking out,” Gumulira and Chimpeni revealed.
In a phone interview a highly charged Group Village Headman Kawenga demanded the journalists to face him in person at his home and cut off the line.
Efforts to talk to the ministry of lands ,and alleged Lin’s daughter proved futile.
Lin who is serving his long-term jail sentence in one of the prisons in the country is also answering corruption charges of attempting to bribe a high court judge to be given a short sentence.
He is facing deportation soon after serving his jail sentence.
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