Chronicle Editor
Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle was launched in June 2005 to offer more decent residential and informal business accommodation to urban dwellers whose slums had been put down a month earlier during Operation Murambatsvina.
Suitable land was quickly identified where better houses and markets were built.
The properties were allocated to those who had been removed from their informal structures.
Within a month or two, tents and roofing sheets fashioned into dwellings that were leaky and could be blown away by the wind anytime were replaced by more secure, solid, better planned and legitimate homes.
Traders who played hide and seek with police were soon allocated proper working and trading spaces where they worked with no fear of arrest or confiscation of their products.
However, the speed at which the evictions and rebuilding were done left a few gaps that made life not exactly comfortable for the people.
On Tuesday, the Government committed to closing the gaps by setting aside $10 billion to build infrastructure in the settlements in 16 councils across the country.
“The matter on planned settlements lacking basic services, Cabinet reports that focus is being placed on an initial 16 Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle settlements identified countrywide for immediate infrastructural development.
“The cost of providing infrastructure on these 16 prioritised settlements amounts to about US$81 million or approximately ZW$10 billion,” Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa told the Press on Tuesday.
“Already, eight local authorities have since been authorised to commence design work for infrastructure development on these sites.
The local authorities include Lupane Local Board; Bindura Municipality; Karoi Town Council; Mutare City Council; Marondera Municipality; Hwange Rural District Council (Dete); and Bulawayo City Council (Cowdray Park).”
Cabinet, she added, had directed Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution to actively participate in the development of Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle projects situated in their respective provinces.
Residents in question are satisfied to be home owners, but have, since they were resettled, been calling on the Government to provide basic infrastructure in their areas.
They want roads in their suburbs; electricity, piped water, sewage reticulation systems and so on.
They have also been appealing to local authorities, to whom the responsibility of administering the settlements was given around 2009, to complement what the Government did by building homes for them.
However, councils have not done anything, likely because of lack of resources.
That is unsurprising since most local authorities are known to be perennially hard up.
It is also possible that some of the councils haven’t done the work they should because they wanted the Government to sort out the challenges.
Nonetheless, the new page that has been opened should enable Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle residents to, as the name of their suburbs indicates, live better lives in houses with running water and electricity and linked by navigable roads.
The exercise to be undertaken through the $10 billion fund should also open up new benefits to the people, in addition to the normal conveniences that sound on-site services and infrastructure provide.
It could result in residents securing greater ownership rights to the real estate they are occupying.
Indeed, the process leading to that is not short but is well worth the wait.
We all want to hold a title deed to our homes and other immovable property.
The Government programme in the 16 settlements is a welcome step towards that end.
We also think that the programme to build basic infrastructure at Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle areas would inspire residents to take better care of their homes.
They are sure to realise that they are not forgotten or abandoned and steps are being taken at the highest level for them to live better quality lives and to facilitate their acquisition of title deeds to their homes.
Online Reporter