By Winston Muleba JR
It may seem hard to believe that a small, slow-flowing stream or gentle river could cause serious damage to people and the places in which they live and work, but looks can be deceptive!
Believe it or not, the rapid growth of Ndola City has necessitated the expansion of settlement and infrastructures to accommodate relative increases in population. The increasing need for human development through rapid urbanization has led to a wide spread horizontal development in the city. As a result of this, streams and river banks have been encroached, vegetal covers removed, soil properties modified and many micro to macro ecosystem have been driven into extinction. Where these changes are not met with complementing planning and management measures, challenges such as water pollution, high risk disaster (flood), and unstable food production are unavoidable, particularly along the river banks.
Just recently, Her Honor, the Vice-President Inonge Wina, made an impromptu visit to Ndola following Copperbelt minister Bowman Lusambo’s statement on illegal land deals which suggested that some people are willfully breaking the land law by allocating and building housing units on the banks of the Kafubu River.
Ms. Wina visited Ndola to get first-hand information over the illegal allocation of plots in the city and wondered where the city council was when such illegality was happening.
It is observed that since his appointment as Copperbelt minister, Mr Lusambo has vowed to clean up government systems by stamping out any form of corruption and other vices that negate development and effective service delivery.
During the Impromptu visit, Ms Wina toured the illegally built housing structures at banks of the Kafubu River and at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in the company of Mr Lusambo, Provincial Permanent Secretary Howard Sikwela and senior Patriotic Front party officials.
Incensed by the illegality as it seems, Lusambo alleged that there were lawlessness, corruption and indiscipline on the Copperbelt regarding land administration adding that the structures would be demolished to stop the illegality.
And posting on his Facebook page, Mr Lusambo stated that issues of the land in question were in public domain and that the council legally allocated the said plots.
“Earlier this week, I issued strong instructions to Ndola City Council to demolish about 100 housing units constructed on the banks of the Kafubu River and around 10 more housing units located on plots behind the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium and those near the Golf Club. After touring these areas, I was shocked to learn that some people have built houses right on the Kafubu River while others have built on land meant for a car park at the stadium,” Lusambo stated.
He further stated that he had directed utility companies to stop servicing property constructed on illegally acquired plots as this promoted illegality.
And Ms Wina said Government will not tolerate such levels of impunity to take root in Zambia and ordered the demolition of all houses built on the Kafubu river banks.
Ms Wina also wondered why the municipality allowed residents to build on illegally acquired land on the banks of Kafubu River and near Levy Mwanawasa Stadium without taking action.
“Where was the council when houses and commercial structures were sprouting on river banks because this piece of land was never advertised?” she wondered.
Squatters have received the matter of demolishing the housing units built on the Kafubu River banks with mixed feelings.
And it has been discovered that some of the squatters living on the banks of Kafubu River, are retirees and majority of other squatters built their housing units using monies they borrowed from the banks as loans.
Owners of these housing units have stated with confidence that the land was allocated to them by council officials but the position of the Council on this matter is contrary. “No one permitted anybody to put up any structure on the Kafubu river bank,” is the position of the City council.
The question is, is it their fault that they built their housing units on the river banks? It could be! But this could also be a fault of the land administrators for not having shown official concern when the structures were just being developed.
As it were, the squatters on river banks have vowed not to vacate their housing units because they have nowhere to go; have no capacity to build new houses and above all did not settle on the river banks on their own. “The council allocated them residential plots on the river bank, is their claim”.
Investigations also show that cadres of a named political party have a hand in the illegal Kafubu river bank plots allocation process.
Nevertheless, the law suggests that one can build a housing structure on the river bank provided its 100metres away from water.
But what could have caused the encroachment on the banks of Kafubu River? Research show that a Railway line turned road and access to bridges that located along the river bank has in recent times opened up large areas for the construction of residential houses and intensification of agricultural activities along the river banks. These changes in land uses along the banks of the river have resulted in large scale transformation of the landscape with telling consequences on the river and aquatic ecosystems.
Generally, constructed encroachments within river corridors and floodplains are vulnerable to flood damages. Placing structures in flood prone areas results in a loss of flood storage in flood plains and wetlands and heightens risks to public safety.
As it were, squatters that have built housing units on the river banks probably don’t understand or are not aware that floods vary as the weather-from month to month and year to year. Flood causes disaster which can destroy the total environmental set up of the area; it causes river bank erosion, depression of land, shifting of river course, river channel widening etc. due to its high discharge, elevation, volume and longer duration.
And one more thing that squatters might have ignored is that flooding can turn even the most harmless looking watercourse into a raging torrent of large-scale destruction - buildings may prove no obstacle to its power; food crops may be ruined leading to food shortages and even starvation; people’s lives may be lost through drowning disease and homelessness.
Unknowingly, as it seems, the removal of vegetation and woody debris from river banks to facilitate human use has increased resource degradation and the property’s susceptibility to flood damages, causing higher risks to squatters.
Vulnerability describes the characteristics and circumstances of a community that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard. As such, to avoid the possible flood disaster to the vulnerable people in question, people who have built houses on the Kafubu river banks need public education. Public education initiatives would increase the population's awareness of the hazard and what they can do to mitigate against it. Such initiatives would make people better awareness of the risks that they would face, especially those that are after plots around the same area. But as it were, sometimes public education is too late and the best option to protect the lives of some individuals is to relocate them to safer areas.
Relevant authority must also consider creating proper land use and pollution policies and enforce these policies. Policies that would encourage sustainable development should be created since this would reduce encroachment on the flood plains as well as illegal quarrying.
The observed land use activities on Kafubu river banks include water extraction for domestic uses, excessive use of chemical fertilizers and land degradation due to improper agricultural practices. These land use activities have and will continue impacting negatively on the river ecosystem.
As highlighted in Ms Wina’s visit to Ndola over Government’s desire to restore sanity in land allocation, this report conclude that there is need to streamline land use activities on the river banks, conserve vital ecosystems like watershed areas and maintain buffers along stream or river channels as a matter of policy to ensure adequate protection of aquatic fauna and sustainable water supply. The town planning authority should enforce restriction of expansion of buildings on the floodplains of the river because of their vulnerability to flood disaster. Given the increasing intensity of irrigation and chemical fertilizer usage, this study recommends the need for further study on the impact of fertilizer and irrigation on the river ecosystem.
Overall, the housing units built on the bank of Kafubu River are prone to flash and riverine flooding. Riverine flooding occurs when a river overflows its banks. It is usually due to the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, exceeding its capacity and overflowing its banks. It can also occur when the velocity of the river is so high that it flows right out of the river channel, usually at bends. And flash flooding is a flood that rises and falls rapidly with little or no advance warning. Flash floods usually result from intense rainfall over a relatively small area.
Therefore, encroachment on Ndola’s Kafubu river bank is a gateway to disaster.
About the Author
Winston Muleba Junior is a Digital Journalist, Aquaculturist, Researcher, Writer and Disaster Management Practitioner who uses media and ICT to promote environmental conservation; science, technology and innovation. He gravitates towards environment, water, aquaculture and agriculture as he is skilled at juxtaposing the latest research and expert opinion with the everyday lives and struggles of people on the ground.
Email: mwenyamuleba@gmail.com
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