There is an outrage in Kasungu after it is being alleged that a football ground belonging to Chankhanga Primary School has been sold by the Kasungu Municipal Council.
The school falls in the middle of the municipality and is in the middle of the town’s commercial area.
A visit to the school has revealed that the football ground has new boundary beacons marked KUMC A, B, C and D a thing which has raised suspicion among members of School Management Committee, Parents and Teachers Association and District’s Education Network (DEN).
Series of meetings called by DEN showed that there is an outrage over the sale of the football ground with most of the people not understanding how the process went.
The issue also saw a Full Council meeting being called to discuss the sale of the football ground.
DEN Secretary Sikinai Mtenje said they want to find out more on the alleged sale of the football ground which is in the hands of the school.
“We are surprised to see that the school ground seems to have been sold although inquiries show that some of the people in critical school committees don’t know how this was arrived at,” he said.
Parents Teachers Association Chairperson, Sylvester Chombe denied that as a school committee the school’s football ground has not been sold.
“As far as our committee knows the school pitch has not been sold,” he said.
During another meeting several people expressed their views on the sale of the land.
District Education Manager (DEM), Joseph Nkhata said no one has the authority of selling land belonging to government institution.
“We were surprised to hear that the council is selling the Chankhanga Primary School ground which helps the learners academically in terms of physical education.
It is so sad that the council wants to lease out the ground to an investor where shops can be erected and help beautifying the municipality which is wrong, they would have approached us as we are ready to build a beautiful fence within the place so that it should look nice,” he added.
Central East Education Division Manager, Billy Banda asked the council to take the matter seriously because the beacons have been erected symbolizing that the place has been taken.
“The boundary beacons which they erected at Chankhanga ground shows that they have already sold the premise to someone, the DEM is the one in position of giving advice on educational issues. It is unfortunate that the DEM was not consulted on the issue but the council went ahead in leasing out the ground,” Banda queried.
Chief Executive Officer of Kasungu Municipality Grace Chirwa said the council would sit down and resolve the issue.
“I am not fully aware of the whole matter because am new in the office and I am not the council on my own. We have to sit down with the councilors and see the way forward on the issue,” she said.
Living to her words a full council meeting was called and it was discovered that the council really has plans of leasing out Chankhanga Primary School football pitch to investors as a way of generating revenue to support the council.
Finance Committee Chairperson and Councilor for Kapalankhwazi Ward, Annie Kafoteka conceded in the meeting that the council has plans of leasing out the ground to investors who can erect big shops hence raising funds for the council and beautifying the municipality.
“There are really plans that the football ground should be given to business people to develop it, but we have not yet implemented them. We want to be collecting revenue from the shops which they will erect because the council needs money in its daily operations and we also believe the shops will change the municipality face,” she said.
Chairperson of Development Committee Councilor, Stead Mangwazu said the issue has to be solved by the citizens of Kasungu not the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). It is speculated that the council got undisclosed amount.