A senior land surveyor at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has observed the increase in fake surveyors, warning members of the public to scrutinize the credentials before undertaking services.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times—ZBT, Colonel Charles Mulenga revealed that most of the people masquerading as surveyors were once handymen, and they lack expert knowledge of surveying.
“There are a lot of people that are masquerading as surveyors; these are people that we train as handymen, and the clients end up thinking they are surveyors. Most of the time, they end up scamming the clients and doing shoddy work,” he added.
Meanwhile, Colonel Mulenga called on developers to do due diligence before buying land and acquire the services of a surveyor, because it is difficult to tell the exact location of land without expert knowledge.
“People buy land based on the copy of the title deed. Someone who is not a surveyor—it’s difficult to know the geographical location of a place. Someone can point to a piece of land and sell it, but the location could be elsewhere, and this is where, before you do anything, you get a surveyor to point out the geographical location of that land,” he added.
Revealing that a qualified surveyor has tools that can tell both the location and the size of the piece of land and observe if there are any encroachments. He observed that most of the encroachments are caused by surveyor masqueraders who have no tools and lack advanced knowledge of the science of surveying.
“It’s because they don’t know the principles of surveying. That’s why when you approach a surveyor, they would request a site plan based on that. It will have a location in respect to other properties because it can’t be an island, adjoining properties, and follow up with the report, and if a survey goes up to five minutes, that’s a source of concern.”
Due to the scientific nature of the sector, Colonel Mulenga revealed that surveying can take a considerable amount of time due to its due diligence nature.
“The duration of the survey is subject; we need to look for unformation and reconnaissance, pick details, and compare the Ministry of Lands reports. Sometimes it is a day or two, or if there are a lot of encroachments and if there are problems, there is a need to recommend to the Surveyor General sometimes.”
Article by Samuel Mutale
