Wau state authority warns military against land grabbing

November 1, 2016 (WAU) – Wau state authority on Tuesday warned top military officials in the state who have involved in grabbing land for railway station, directing them to immediately evacuate the area or could face the law.

The warning came after the railway station workers in the state wrote a petition to the state government on the current development that some top unnamed military officials alongside with individual officials in the state were illegally occupying some parts of the lands allocated to the railway some years ago.

On Tuesday morning, a high profile delegation of the state government led by to two ministers, the minister for Agriculture, James Joseph, who doubles as acting minister for Physical Infrastructure and Information and Communication minister, Bona Gaudensio, and Wau town mayor, Mel Aleu, among others with the director general for the ministry of Physical Infrastructure, David Jorom, visited Wau railway station to meet the station workers over the situation.

Speaking at the site, Wau town Mayor Mel Aleu Goc said nobody will be allowed to illegally own land allotted for the railway which is a government property.

“This morning when we came here, I received the petition from the workers of the Railway station written by manager. The petition contained of some land grabbing that took place in addition to some assets that were here, the assets were taken, by some soldiers,” said
Mel.

“We have also seen some concrete buildings within the compound of the Railway station, all in all, we want to assure our citizens that our people who occupied the Railway station’s lands to evacuate the lands because these are the properties of the government and the properties of the Railway station that could not be used in such a way,” said Mel.

State Information minister, Bona Gaudensio, descried those occupying the land as outlaw and that the state council of ministers will soon take a decision on the matter.

“We paid a short visit this morning to the Railway station, Wau station, they are facing a lot of challenges, there are some outlaw people which are under some different forces at the level of the state, they came and they controlled parts of the land which belongs to Railway in Wau, this is why as the government, we came this morning for official visit to listen from the staff from the Railway which are based in Wau,” said Bona.

“Our coming is so that they give us full information about difficulties they are facing, we as government, we assured those who are controlling those lands, we gave them time to evacuate these lands,” he said.

The minister said those who did not respect the orders would face law, adding “We will go as government of Wau state to make a memo to be passed through council of ministers and then we will decide, this is our message today this morning, we came and we gave them a warning to let them evacuate this land.”

Meanwhile the acting the minister for Physical Infrastructure, James Joseph, said the Wau Railway station belongs to the National Ministry of Roads and Transport of which his ministry falls under.

“We the ministry in Wau could like to assure public that the ministry of Physical Infrastructure will continue to protect the workers and the properties of Railway station in Wau,” he said.

(ST)