NOEL IYOMBWA writes
A BURUNDESE national has been arrested for allegedly forging title deeds to a property belonging to someone else in Lusaka’s Mandevu Compound.
Strangely, the officer in charge at a named police where the matter was first reported, had insisted the title deeds despite experts at the Ministry of Lands determining to the contrary.
Burundese national, identified as Vincent Ndolochi, was arrested for allegedly forging a title deed for a piece of land in Zanimuone West area belonging to a Mr. Joseph Kangu, property that had later been sold to Mr Peter Ngoma.
Mr Ngoma was shocked to find that the land he had bought from Mr Kangu was being claimed by the Burundese who had even provided allegedly forged title deeds to police as proof of ownership.
Mr Ngoma on the new structure that he is building at the said plot.
The nightmare for Mr Ngoma was only beginning as police at the station where the Burundese had reported seemed determined to ignore an earlier court ruling which had found that the land belonged to Mr Kangu.
Mr Ndolochi, had apparently also bought the same land in unclear circumstances and obtained the same forged title deeds.
MR NGOMA: According to information that we have, Vincent Ndolochi, a Burundese national, illegally bought land from unknown people while the owner, Joseph Kangu, was away in South Africa.
Mr Kangu found an illegal structure on his piece of land when he returned from South Africa in 2018. Mr Ndolochi could not pinpoint who sold him the land in question when Mr Kangu queried him. This led to a legal battle .
The matter was taken to the Lusaka High Court where the judgement was entered in Mr Joseph Kangu’s favour on July 25, 2018. The court cancelled the land transaction for Mr Ndolochi because it was found to have been illegally done.
In August 2018, Mr. Kangu decided to sell the land to me at K200, 000 and a letter of sale was issued together with other documents from the traditional leaders, but Mr Ndolochi resurfaced in December the same year, and also started claiming the same land using fake title deeds.
I was summoned to Kabangwe Police, during the same year, where I was informed that there was a person claiming that I had bought land belonging to him. I found Mr Ndolochi at the police station. I requested him to produce the title deeds for the land in question but the police indicated he was still the owner despite having no title deeds.
We were again summoned to the police post after a month where we were told that Mr Ndolochi had provided the title deeds to prove that he was the owner of the land in question.
But when we examined the surveyor’s diagram, we discovered that it had no date stamp from the traditional leader’s office, the survey date and the date the title was issued.
The land in question is in Chibombo district, but the title he had was obtained from Lusaka district, and the location was indicated as Kabangwe West instead of Zanimuone West.
At the Ministry of Lands, we were informed the title deeds were for a piece of land in Kabulonga, and that we should therefore sue Mr Ndolochi after the police established the authenticity of the papers.
We returned to Kabangwe Police Post but the officer-in-charge refused to open a docket for the case insisting the title deeds were genuinely obtained.
So we decided to report the matter with Matero Police where the officers established that the title deeds were forged.
THE SUN: What happened after the police officers found out that Mr Ndolochi had forged the land documents?
MR NGOMA: The man has since been arrested but was released on police bond on Thursday last week. He will appear in court soon.
