Govt working with clandestine housing cooperatives- Harare Residents Trust

Harare Residents Trust has accused the Harare City Council for working with the clandestine cooperatives which allocate residents stands at un designated places where  the local authority has not even serviced the land leading o the current demolitions.

The trusts accused the government of burdening residents on Housing Delivery.

"Most land on the outskirts of Harare but still withing the jurisdiction of Harare City Council is considered State land. It is administered by the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing on behalf of the Government of Zimbabwe. With this control, the Government, through the Ministry responsible for the registration of housing cooperatives, has registered several housing cooperatives, which have in turn proceeded to allocate residents stands on which they have built their houses," said the trust.

"But in most cases the housing cooperatives have not fully complied with rules and regulations regarding the servicing of the land...provision of sewerage, water, and roads services, before allocating residents stands to build. At the end of the day, the majority of the housing cooperatives have allocated people stands on unserviced land, threatening disease outbreaks, illegal land utilisation and occupation."

The trust said it has also emerged that most of the housing cooperatives only exist to their members but are not officially registered with the Ministry, therefore none existent, legally.

"Yet the same bogus housing cooperatives have been allocated land through political party systems, depriving both the Government and the Council the much needed revenue.When the whole land is now occupied by the legal and illegal housing cooperatives, the Government directs the City of Harare to take over the new settlements, where they have to provide basic essential services like water, sewerage, refuse collection, roads, and the establishment of district offices for attending to residents and collection of revenues," said the trust. The housing Cooperatives will continue to receive money from their members without any contribution to the putting up of infrastructure as was initially the case when they secured their residential stands. This there means that some Government officials, working through a money making system, enriches their friends running cooperatives, and hands over the burden of actually providing the services, initially expected to come from Housing Cooperatives on the Council."

The trust said the meaning of this housing situation is that areas like Caledonia, which were illegally occupied by housing cooperatives established by political party leaders was forced on Harare City Council, yet the members of these housing cooperatives have to continue to make money from their members without any contributions towards infrastructure development.

"This is massive corruption engineered by Government officials to hinder service provision in Harare City Council. It is time that the housing cooperatives in these areas have to stop receiving money from their members, and instead the money due to their cooperatives should be directed towards the City of Harare so that it provides services where they are assured of some revenue. Otherwise other residents have to carry the burden of supporting party activists who have hidden behind housing cooperatives to gatecrash into the urban areas, and be forcibly incorporated to receive free services," said the trust.