Some traditional leaders in the country have said the spirit of the recently passed land bills, especially the Customary Land Bill, goes against the purpose of their existence and feel the legislation is aimed at wiping them out of the system.<\/p>\n
The Bill, which introduces a fee from customary land title holders, is faulted for apparently stripping traditional leaders of their power in management of customary land as it provides for establishment of some committees to decide such matters.<\/p>\n
Traditional Authority (T\/A) Mwankhunikira of Rumphi described the enactment of the bill as a big problem that needs immediate attention.<\/p>\n
Mwankhunikira said traditional leaders have powers because of customary land but with this bill, it means they are nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want the whole nation to discuss this not Parliament alone. We are angry with this and we need all chiefs to come together and discuss the way forward. We cannot leave such a big decision to Members of Parliament who are only five-year term leaders,\u201d Mwankhunikira said.<\/p>\n
While emphasising that he was speaking from a speculative point of view, Senior Chief Kapeni of Blantyre said he thought before the bill was passed, chiefs across the country would be properly consulted for their views.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat would be a chief without land? In all the meetings I attended, chiefs insisted they wanted to be in control of the land because a chief is chief because of land. So, without control over land, what is a chief? What will they be doing? But what I am saying is speculative at the moment as I am yet to see the contents of the bill,\u201d Kapeni said.<\/p>\n
He said the traditional leaders in his area had a meeting where they were trying to get the answer on where the bill is placing traditional leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are waiting for the DC [District Commissioner] to come back and tell us where we are and I will give you our feedback,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Traditional Authority Kabunduli of Nkhata Bay said the bill is definitely trying to abolish chieftaincy in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur powers as chiefs are in customary land. So there will be chiefs without land as the bill is stripping us of those powers. If the President understands these issues, he should not assent to the Bill. Because if he signs, it will mean as chiefs we will have to sit down and strategise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe country is not for the government but chiefs and their people. Tell them [government] that some chiefs are saying the President should not assent to the bill. If the trend continues, by and by the government will declare that there should be no chiefs in Malawi. If they say there is no customary land, where is the power of the chiefs?\u201d Kabunduli said.<\/p>\n
Senior Chief Lukwa of Kasungu, who together with other chiefs led a protest against sidelining of T\/As in customary land administration in 2013, said he did his part in leading the protest and it is now time for other chiefs to express themselves on the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was part of the team of chiefs that protested the same at Parliament. Let others come in and say their part,\u201d Lukwa said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some traditional leaders in the country have said the spirit of the recently passed land bills, especially the Customary Land Bill, goes against the purpose of their existence and feel the legislation is aimed at wiping them out of the system. The Bill, which introduces a fee from customary land title holders, is faulted for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28269,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28267\/revisions\/28269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}