OVER 900 HOMESTEADS WILL BE DEMOLISHED

MBABANE – About 900 homesteads will be demolished at Bhadzeni I and Luyengweni.

Senior Rural Development Officer in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy Meshack Fakudze said he recalled that there were about 800 homesteads that had to be demolished at Luyengweni and about 102 at Bhadzeni I.

The residents have been given six months to vacate the land by the Land Management Board (LMB) following which their homesteads will be demolished.

Fakudze said, at Luyengweni, the homesteads that would be demolished were constructed on fields reserved for farming rice and other crops. He said the affected homesteads were located between Luyengweni and Njingeni River.

“The land they used to construct their homesteads was appropriated for plots intended for farming,” Fakudze said.
He further stated that at Bhadzeni I, 102 homesteads had to be demolished following numerous warnings to the community. He said these warnings dated back to 2009.

“At Bhadzeni I, the people were told to stop constructing their houses as they were building in plots allocated for farming, grazing or wetlands,” he said.
Fakudze noted that one homestead was illegally built on land that belonged to a family of orphaned and vulnerable children who were evicted before their land was sold to someone else. Thandi Maziya, a member of the LMB said those that would have their homesteads demolished will not be compensated.

 “We will not compensate them as their structures are constructed on illegal land.”
She said the people responsible for illegally allocating land would have to deal with the developing issues.

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