She is a single mother of four who works as a teller at a local bank – a bank she says is facing collapse because it has been struggling to raise the threshold capital required by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
“The prospect of being retrenched is high, just as it is with several other indigenous banks, and that is bad enough for me and my family,” Takavada told The Zimbabwean.
But there is a worse fate awaiting her: she is likely to be evicted from the six-roomed house that she had just completed building on wetland in Chitungwiza, using a $7,000 loan from her workplace.
The government, through the ministry of local government, insists that she obtained the land on which she built the house illegally, but her story is different.
“I don’t understand why (Ignatius) Chombo (the local government minister) is now saying I acquired the land illegally. I have all the papers to prove it and I appear on the municipality ratepayers’ list. I belonged to a housing cooperative that we were led to believe was above board,” she said.
The cooperative, United We Stand Multi-Purpose Cooperative, was reportedly led by a Zanu (PF) councillor, Fredrick Mabamba, whom Chombo recently suspended from the Chitungwiza municipality pending further investigations on allegations that he criminally acquired council land that he then sold to unsuspecting home-seekers.
Takavada is among 14,000 home-owners whose properties the ministry plans to demolish because the stands were illegally acquired and the houses were built on top of sewer pipes, under high voltage power lines, on land designated for other uses or on wetlands.
The ministry has just released an audit report indicating the abuse of municipal land by councillors and other influential individuals who parceled out land to desperate home-seekers.
Even though the government has promised to allocate the affected residents new stands, it offers little comfort to the likes of Takavada.
“I really don’t know what awaits me in 2014 and beyond, but it is clear that people in my situation are headed for a bleak future. Providing affected residents with new stands is not a solution to the complex problems we face.
“From what I hear, we will not be compensated for the improvements we made on the land. In my case, where will I get the money to repay the bank, not to mention the fact that a lifetime investment will be demolished when the bulldozers come?” she said.
Samson Damison, another resident who has built a house on prohibited land close to Manyame River near the populous suburb of St Mary’s in Chitungwiza, fears that some of the affected residents will not get the new land after all.
“Land allocation has always been accompanied by corruption and it won’t be surprising if a lot of people whose houses are demolished will not be able to get alternative stands,” he said.
Added Damison: “Besides reverting to being a tenant at the mercy of ruthless landlords, I am concerned about my two school-going daughters. Whether the government gives me a new stand or I find my own place, that will disturb them because I have to change their schools and they might end up having to travel long distances to school.”
The land audit that was commissioned by Chombo indicates that the 14,000 “illegal” homes are in urban Chitungwiza and rural Seke, where village heads allegedly sold land to home-seekers in contravention of the law.
The audit report recommended that the ‘land barons’ should be prosecuted, but the residents who face homelessness in the new year say more humane strategies should be adopted by the ministry, which is now reportedly working with the United Nations Development Programme to solve the problem of illegal structures.
“While prosecuting the land barons who cheated us is okay, we would have hoped for the government to find ways of ensuring that we are compensated. In fact, we will gain nothing if the barons are jailed,” said Stella Kuziva, who was about to complete a four-bedroomed house and owns two tuckshops in Zengeza, Chitungwiza.
Chombo’s deputy, Biggie Matiza, who coordinated the audit, has however said the demolition of houses will be done in a humane manner.
“I must emphasise that the exercise is well organised, humane, planned and co-ordinated and it respects human rights and the rule of law. As a committee, we have recommended that all those affected should have somewhere to go and that should silence any fears of so called wanton demolitions,” said Matiza.
Observers have for long urged the government to adopt an effective housing policy to meet the growing demand, saying the construction of houses without proper authorisation indicated acute land hunger.
Independent economist Innocent Makwiramiti said demolitions would have negative financial implications for both the ejected home-owners and the government.
“The demolition of the so-called illegal structures will create demand for accommodation and landlords are going to push rents up. But then, demolishing the houses comes with a cost because there is need for fuel, transport hiring and payments to hired workforces.
“This, of course, comes amid reports that government has paid an arm and a leg to the people who were conducting the audit,” Makwiramiti told The Zimbabwean.
Post published in: News