Central Equatoria State governor Emmanuel Adil Anthony has attributed the high rate of land-grabbing in the state to overpopulation in the capital city, Juba.
Addressing members of the state parliament, youth, and chiefs on Friday while inspecting the construction of Juba County headquarters in Kapuri, Governor Adil said there is a ‘population explosion’ in Juba as most South Sudanese want to settle there.
“The issue of land-grabbing has two sides. This, I want to tell the administrators, especially the chiefs and all of us who are gathered here today and members of parliament. We have to address the issue of land grabbing from the root causes. There is no shortcut to solving the problem. Otherwise, you will always deal with the symptoms,” Adil said.
“The problem of land grabbing is one. There is a population explosion in Juba. You will agree with me. Every South Sudanese citizen starting with Central Equatoria State citizens wants to come to Juba,” he added.
Rural-urban migration, he says, leads to overcrowding in small pieces of land, bloating of land prices, and land-grabbing.
“All of these have brought about land-grabbing. People, especially traders, want to sell land to make money. Money in a very quick way,” Adil added.
To address this issue, Adil directed chiefs and other local government officials linked to land matters to begin the process of showing people who already bought pieces of land their lands to avoid grabbing.
He went on to encourage the land owners to put up some sort of structure in those pieces of land to indicate ownership.