Correspondent
Harare was originally designed to accommodate 300,000 people, but is now home to over 1.5 million people.
With the increase in population, planning has become complex, but the main challenge has been the influence of land barons.
According to the Uchena Report, land barons are usually politically connected and self-proclaimed illegal state land ‘authorities’.
The big question is about how they have managed to repeatedly swindle both the Council and individuals.
The Magic Section of the Constitution
The answer lies in Section 74 of the Zimbabwean Constitution.
“Freedom from arbitrary eviction
“No person may be evicted from their home, or have their home demolished, without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances”.
They have repeatedly taken advantage of this to protect their deals, and officials are failing to respond to this tactic.
Council’s Housing Director this week revealed that there was a concerted ‘lawfare’ against Council by land barons.
Nhekairo told Parliament that the law has been used to frustrate the Council.
“There is now a tendency by some of these invaders, what I can call lawfare, where they quickly rush to the courts with dirty hands and apply for, say, spoliation orders.
“They seek to regain what they feel they are being repossessed in terms of that piece of land.
“And we will be in courts for two years; meanwhile, developments will be taking shape.
“When council finally wins its case, we now take restorative action to ensure that whatever has been done wrongly is rectified.
“This is the challenge that we are having.
“When I spoke of 144 sites invaded, I was basically talking of the preponderance by land barons to take occupation of municipal land illegally.”
Building Fast To Stay Longer
Harare Ward 16 Councillor Denford Ngadziore also raised the issue to Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe.
“We have a challenge, land barons are so cunning that they can complete a cottage within three days.
“For example, they might begin construction on a Friday, work through Saturday and have the cottage finished by Sunday evening.
“When council enforcement agents arrive on Monday, they find completed houses and the law requires us to obtain a court order first before taking action.”
The scheme has resulted in massive losses for individuals, Council and the state.
The Uchena report revealed that the country recovered less than 10% of the intrinsic value of land that was converted from farmland to urban residential land.
Specifically, the state was supposed to realise approximately US$3 billion but got less than 10%.
This means more than US$2.9 billion is still owed and has largely been taken by land barons.
