By KELVIN MUDENDA –
JOY gripped Livingstone residents who have finally been offered plots after being on the waiting list since 2012.

. KAMPYONGO

Recently, Local Government and Housing Minister Stephen Kapyongo directed the Livingstrone City Council to resume land transactions that had been pending since 2012.
The council would in the next few weeks offer 800 more plots from the 3,000 applicants.
The Times of Zambia yesterday published a list of 262 successful applicants who had applied for land.
Emmanuel Dunu, 34, who is one of the successful applicants for a medium-cost residential plot, thanked the Livingstone City Council for fulfilling its promise.
Mr Dunu said in an interview that the process had taken long and that some applicanats had even lost trust in the local authority.
He thanked the Government for creating an opportunity for him to own land as a youth, as he would be able to contribute to the growth of the economy.
John Mumba, another successful applicant, appealed to the council to consider extending the deadline for payment of premium charges owing to the fact that most of the applicants had in the last four years channelled their resources to other projects.
“Some of us had even lost hope, we decided to channel our money to other areas of need and I was just surprised when a workmate called me to say he had seen my name on the council list for plots. So please consider extending the deadline for payments since the time is just too short,” he said.
Council acting public relations manager Kameko Manda said the local authority had in the first batch offered 249 medium-cost residential and eight commercial as well as worship plots to successful applicants.
Ms Manda said the council was offering the plots in phases using first in, first out method in accordance with how the applicants were interviewed.
“For now, we are offering the first batch to 262 applicants and priority is being given to members of the public because we know that they have waited for a long time and others had lost hope. We want to restore the public confidence that the public had in the local authority, that is why councillors, council employees and ministry of Lands officials will not be given in this batch, they will be given at a later stage because we want the process to be as transparent as possible.
“800 plots will soon be given in the next batch; there are just logistical arrangements that we are putting in place to make sure that the whole process runs smoothly,” Ms Manda said.
She said successful applicants would have to pay K10,000 for medium-cost residential, K12,000 for commercial and K6,000 for places of worship plots, adding that premium charges should be paid by May 15, this year.
She appealed to members of the public to be patient with the local authority as it rolls out the process of offering plots to those who applied in 2012.