Two National Capital District Regional candidates are campaigning on the need for the city’s settlers to gain land titles.
They said that development should involve the citizens instead of destroying homes.
These candidates are Michael Kandiu and James Melegepa.
They believe that a super road at the cost of evicting settlers is unreasonable and that people must be resettled before infrastructure can be built.
But the question arises on how best they will address the issue if elected.
Kandiu, a real-estate agent by profession, believes the way forward is allowing a surveyor to survey settlements, structure the land entitlement, than hand the titles to settlers who can then mortgage the land and apply for loans to develop it.
Meanwhile, Melegepa, who was once a policy adviser to five different governments and helped construct the NCD Commission, says the government when spending K200 million on super roads, must set aside K50 million for residents or settlers along the road they are constructing.
Melegepa, who was also a reformist during the Sir Mekere Mourata term, also wants to ensure land titles for people residing in National Housing Commissions Buildings to have their land titles before looking to giving new titles in settlements.
While the issue of housing in the nation’s capital is not only for settlers in settlements, it is also an issue for the working class who are unable to afford sky high rentals.
Melegepa believes housing is a time bomb that is soon to become a bigger problem for the nation’s capital.
