Maper North Women Hold Peaceful Demonstrations Over Land Grabbing
The group of women residing in Maper North residential area held peaceful demonstrations over what they termed as land grabbing by individuals who claim the ownership of the plots. 20 April 2013 By Abraham Agoth AWEIL, 18 April 2013 [Gurtong]-While chanting and singing patriotic songs on street from Maper North to Aweil town, approximately 100 women holding a petition written “Who legally deserves the ownership of plot?” matched to the State legislative Assembly to hand over their petition for deliberations. Some part of the petition says that four individuals whom the group alleged as grabbers are said to have taken 260 plots of land within Maper North alone fuelling the problems. According to Ajong Deng Diing, a demonstrators’ representative says that they do not want to put law in their hands and that’s why they have come to seek legal intervention to calm the situation so that they retain their ownership over those plots. “We are here because we do not want to do it violently since they there is paramount authority. Jiel Dhieu Nyiwel with his brother Deng came to homes and told us that we do not deserve to be those plots claiming that they are their inherited plots long time ago. They told us that we must leave and go back to where we belong. If we [returnees] are not legible to own any land here in Aweil, then the government must take us to where we belong,” she said. Deng claims that they were embarrassed, abused and that they were like ants and dogs in those plots hence pained them and that’s why they thought of bringing this issue into assembly’s attention for wise judgement. Meanwhile the member of the parliament representing Maper constituency Santino Mayuat Ngong condemns that action taken by those individuals allegedly accused of grabbing land from citizens whom he says are legal and duly right people to own those plots according to South Sudan Land Act. “These citizens have right to own those plots because some of them were given those plots by the state ministry of physical Infrastructure or by the governor’s official transfer of those whose home got flooded in various parts of Aweil town during 2008 flood; these people attained duly ownership of those plots since those homes were officially registered on their names,” he said. Hon. Deng Ayom, the chairperson for land committee in the Assembly says that the assembly is concerned to make sure that people’s problems are brought into attention by the assembly as their eyes. “As we are here for the public interests, we are always ready to make sure that what faces public is given due attention and that’s why we took from their petition and immediately called for deliberation on it to find a way forward. The assembly came out with resolutions to form a one-week committee that goes on ground to investigate where there problem exists.” he said. Ayom further reveals that the committee is mandated to investigate the physical infrastructure’s ministry, demonstrators and community village committee which from day to day supervise the handover of plots to find out where the accusation falls. However, the accused individuals were not reached for comments on the allegations. Posted in: Home, Governance, Parliaments -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
