The Mchinji First Grade Magistrate court has stopped the district council for aimlessly selling trees to finance their activities due to insufficient funding from government which has been there for several months.
According to court records The Maravi Post sourced this week showed that Alumakiyo Kalonga, a concerned resident at the Boma obtained an injunction in a bid to restrain further plundering of the trees which the council has been selling since April, 2015 amid insufficient funding to run government affairs in the district.
Sources at Mchinji district council privy to The Maravi Post on the matter revealed that about 480 trees have been sold already to some council’s staff and buyers at MK6, 500 for each tree as MK312,000 has been realized from such sales since April this year.
Councilor Peter Chipanga, the district chairperson confirmed the development to The Maravi Post of being served with an injunction but surprised with Kalonga’s conduct of his real intentions with the court order based on the financial challenges the council has been facing to meet its programming needs.
“During the last council meeting, the assembly agreed to sell some of the trees which were putting people’s lives at risks. The decision was arrived after realizing that the council was also unable to pay its workers and meet other bills the district incurred due to inadequate funding from government. This is why I am surprised with the decision which the young man has resorted in restraining us from doing what was best for the council’s business”, worried Councilor Chipanga.
In his wisdom for obtaining an injunction, Kalonga said was worried the rate the trees were massively sold a situation which will contribute to environmental degradation whose impact is climate change leading to dry spells, floods, hailstorms and unreliable rainfall patterns.
“An injunction is aimed at stopping this misconduct from the council who are busy sourcing funds through selling of tress while the same government is busy advocating for environmental conservation through tree planting.
“Despite that, the same council sold some plots at Chibwana in order to create new house line (Mayadi) as money sourced from that sales which meant for construction of the new community stadium has been channeled to its intended purposes as until now nothing has been done on the site. It seems the council has run out of ideas hence the injunction to let them start thinking out side the box of utilizing already existence investments the assembly has”, challenges Kalonga.
But Harold Kathenga, Mchinji district officer blamed the incident to the council saying an injunction was in a right order towards the assembly leadership misconduct which did not a bid by his office recommendation towards the idea of selling trees instead of resorting other means of sourcing funds.
