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Zvamaida Murwira
Senior Reporter
Chitungwiza municipality says it will provide alternative land to resettle more than 10 000 stand owners in Nyatsime housing scheme who were displaced more than 10 years ago by illegal occupants, a development that is expected to end a long-drawn-out problem.
The 10 000 people hold offer letters from Chitungwiza municipality showing legitimate title to the stands after they bought them from council but failed to occupy their stands after land barons suddenly parcelled out the stands to unsuspecting home seekers.
Some of the stand owners have since died while others have relocated to the rural areas due to the inordinate delay in resolving the issue by Chitungwiza municipality and Manyame rural district council.
The municipality has since invited those stand owners to come and open files with the council so that they can assess the magnitude of the challenge as it seeks a remedy to end the problem that has been a thorn in the flesh of the stand owners.
In an interview, Chitungwiza Municipality’s acting town clerk, Mr Japson Nemuseso said they had invited stand owners to approach their offices to open files.
“The objective of the process that we are carrying out is to verify the magnitude of the problem as we seek a solution to it,” he said
“It is correct that there are people with offer letters, some are genuine others are fake and it is also clear that there are some people who invaded some pockets of the land in Nyatsime. What we are doing is to verify who is on the ground to try to rectify the problem and establish the real owners of those stands in terms of those that have paid for their stands with council and not to land barons.
“It is important that we establish the magnitude of our liability. We look forward to resettle some stand owners in nearby farms once the processes and discussions that are there with the Government are concluded to allow us to have the local farms.”
He said the case took long to conclude because of some litigation that had taken place and had since been concluded.
Mr Nemuseso said one of the bottlenecks was that farmers who had been lawfully settled on the farms had approached the courts challenging their removal by the Government to pave the way for the acquisition of land for urban expansion.
Two years ago, the Local Government and Public Works Ministry set up the Manyame-Nyatsime joint committee to address the issue of the stand owners but the committee has not been able to function owing to varied reasons.
Two months ago, Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe told Parliament that he had since directed Chitungwiza municipality and Manyame rural district council to resuscitate the committee and look into the issue.
He said the then Local Government and Public Works Minister, July Moyo in the exercise of powers conferred upon him by the enabling law, established a Joint Committee to look into the joint management of the land.
The land to be jointly managed includes farms such as Braemar, Longlands, Cawdor, Edinburg, Tantallon and Dunnottar under Chitungwiza Municipality and Manyame Rural District Council), inclusive of the Nyatsime area.
With regard to Nyatsime housing scheme, a Commission of Inquiry into the sale of State land chaired by Justice Tendai Uchena in 2019 said the legitimate stand owners should have title confirmed, while illegal occupants settled by land barons should be evicted.
At least 16 politicians and cooperative executives identified as land barons, the commission said, should be prosecuted.
The commission recommended that an audit be done to establish the status of all people in occupation of the land in question.
Online Reporter