By Correspondent
By Correspondent
Ken Sharpe, founder of property investment firm, Augur Investments, has defended his firm’s project to build flats on a Harare wetland alleging that it’s dilapidated.
Sharpe has since reiterated the point in two different interviews reinforcing his belief in the project.
“We will ask them (Harare Council) for any land available and that is what they said was available.
“So we took it in good faith. We did the work on the road. We spent US$20 million.
Harare Council Gave Us The Land
“We had to wait a decade to get the land zoned, the change of use. When the change of use was done, then this issue of wetlands came up,” he said.
Sharpe said his company had fought the cases at the courts and won.
“A declaration was made. We challenged at the High Court we won. We took it to the Supreme Court, we won.
No Wetland To Talk About
“So when we settled, we said, fine, let us protect the wetland core. The wetland itself is dilapidated. There is no more wetland.
“There is no water. A wetland needs water. And there is no water there simply because people know you are drilling boreholes,” he added.
Sharpe said the reason for the destruction of the wetland is because of too many boreholes in Harare.
“There is 10 000s, 100 000s, of boreholes in Harare where people are extracting water because the city failed to give them water.
“So that is water that is being extracted – my own home in Borrowdale, when I first drilled the hole there 16 years ago, I hit water 22 metres.
“Today I had to drill to 140 metres, the same plot, the same piece of land to get water.”
Sharpe also repeated the same argument in an interview with Trevor Ncube on The Conversation with Trevor and believes his project is above board, legally and morally.