CHITUNGWIZA - Over 30 families that were allocated stands without following proper town by-lines beside the Harare-Seke road have been moved. This is despite the fact that the stands were already under construction.An official from the Chitungwiza Municipality said that the stands were allocated by a clique of corrupt members of the town executive who charged over US$3000 for the stands. The families have already been relocated to yet another rocky open space. Its very unfortunate for us as we have to start building again and that is very expensive, we at least have an alternative, said one affected man.
According to the Chairman of CHIRRA the stand beneficiaries were moved after they complained. Over 40 000 people have been on the housing waiting list since independence and have been overlooked by the stand allocation manner, which invariably favours the rich and well connected. Despite having been allocated six farms for expansion, Chitungwiza Municipality is yet to develop the farms and continues to dish out stands in ventilation gaps leaving the town with no space for recreation.
While a stand officially costs US$200, high ranking town officials buy the stands and later sell them for US$3000. The stands are never gazzeted as is the case with other towns. There are no adverts in the papers, things are just done rampantly without following the proper procedure, said the source.
The Chitungwiza Residents and Ratepayers Association (CHIRRA) have on several occasions taken the council to task over ventilation gaps but with limited success. Under the town by-laws houses should be at least 30 metres from the road but this was not the case, the town has made some people very rich, said the source.
Efforts to get a comment from the Acting Town Planner, Jonathan Dembetembe, were fruitless.
Post published in: Economy