PARLY CONFUSION OVER SECTIONAL TITLES BILL

LOBAMBA – The passing of the Sectional Titles (Amendment) Bill, 2014 has been thrown into further confusion following an assertion that it was unconstitutional.

The assertion was made by senators during a meeting for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development Portfolio Committee yesterday.
The argument by the senators was that the amendment on the Sectional Titles Act, 2003 could not be made until the Tinkhundla Bill became effective. This, they argued, was because the Sectional Titles was part of the Urban Government Act, which they argued was not in line with the Constitution as it focused only on towns and not the rest of the country.

It was Senator Chief Kusa Dlamini who raised the issue while making his comments on the amendments that were proposed by the ministry regarding the Sectional Titles Act.

The chief mentioned that the Constitution of Swaziland talked of a single government that would regulate towns in the country.
“I am wondering if what we are doing can survive a court order where someone will take us to court and test if it can be challenged.

This, I say,  because the Constitution is clear that all citizens of this country should benefit whether they are in towns or in the communities,” Dlamini said.

He mentioned that according to the Constitution, it was procedural to start with the finalisation of the Tinkhundla Bill before making the amendments of the Sectional Titles Act. Section 218 of the Constitution states, ‘Parliament shall within five years of the commencement of this Constitution provide for the establishment of a single countrywide system of local government which is based on the Tinkhundla system of governance, hierarchically organised according to the volume or complexity of service rendered and integrated so as to avoid the urban/rural dichotomy’.

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