Battle for ownership

Housing cooperatives here are embroiled in a 
struggle for ownership of a piece of land that was issued by the
Harare City Council for housing purposes this year.

On April 5 this year,
Harare City Council issued offer letters for a piece of land to five
housing cooperatives in Budiriro: Teachers Comfort, Legacy, Varombo,
Mutasa and Farai. The five are operating under the
auspices of LETFVAM Housing Cooperative.

A total of 292 housing stands were supposed to be issued out to the
LETFVAM members.

 However, members of the LETFVAM Housing Cooperative have said that
before they allocated stands to their
members, the piece of land was invaded by home seekers from
Mushamukuru Housing Cooperative headed by Simbarashe Chiweshe.

“Their justification for their action is that they had applied for the
same piece of land,” said a member of LETFVAM on condition of anonymity. “Their action is in defiance of the City
Council’s resolutions because they do not have offer letters.” Chiweshe, who purports to be the
Chairperson of Mushamukuru Housing Cooperative, is selling the
residential stands for between $4, 000,00 and $8,
000,00.

“We tried to bring this issue to the attention of the Director of
Housing but we got no positive response. After that, we went to the Town Clerk but still nothing,” said another LETFVAM member.

Last week, the LETFVAM members were at Town House seeking an audience
with the Harare City Council Town Clerk, Tendai Mahachi, who reportedly
said the issue was beyond his jurisdiction.

Investigations by The Zimbabwean revealed that the issue was
politicised after the Teachers Comfort Housing Cooperative was labeled as being made up of pro-MDC teachers.

“Chiweshe claims to be politically linked and some of the people who were offered housing stands are CIOs,
soldiers and police officers,” said another member who spoke on condition of anonymity. Efforts to get a comment from Mahachi and Chiweshe were fruitless.

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