Some councillors in Dowa District have asked the district council to expedite the allocation of plots to people who want to develop new structures at Dowa Boma where old buildings were demolished in 2022.

They made the call on Friday during the second extraordinary full council meeting of the first quarter of 2023/24 fiscal year that sought to scrutinise reports from the development committee.

During the meeting, Msakambewa East Ward councillor Martin Luka demanded to know why the council was delaying to allocate plots to the public at Boma market where the council demolished old structures to pave the way for new infrastructure development.

He said: “We have already detailed a layout plan for the whole issue, but we are concerned that the process of allocating plots to interested people has not yet started, and we will soon clock a year since the demolition of the old structures.

Mpakule: No shortcuts

“The delay is affecting the potential development of the district which may come with the new infrastructure.”

Mponela Ward councillor Mayamiko Kambewa also urged the council to speed up the process.

However, in an interview, Dowa District Council director of planning and development Mercy Mpakule said the allocation will be done soon.

She said the council was considering all things to have standard designs and legal plot allocation exercise.

Said Mpakule: “Our plan with the physical planning team is to have a good-looking town. We do not want any shortcuts. There are also issues of a road we want to have there, which has delayed because our grader was not available.

“The other thing is that according to the mandate of urban planning, we must have a proper plot allocation committee, and we cannot allocate the plots without that committee. But this next week, we will constitute that committee and run adverts on the plot.”

Businessperson John Mandota said he was looking forward to the adverts to buy a plot.

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