adminVusumuzi Dube Municipal Reporter
AS the Bulawayo City Council’s housing and community services department continues to hog the limelight for the wrong reasons, the local authority has reportedly banned the identification and purchasing of infill residential stands in the city. This comes amid revelations that the local authority has embarked on an audit of the department to weed out any corrupt elements and bring transparency to the selling of stands with allegations that some council officials were abusing the system and even selling stands that were in wetlands or have service pipes passing through them.
Responding to questions from journalists during a media consultative meeting, the city’s director of housing and community services, Mr Isaiah Magagula confirmed that they had since been forced to ban the selling of infill stands noting that council had initially been misguided to allow people to identify infill stands and request to purchase them.
“Initially those spaces that are now being said to be infill stands were left as breather space or other reasons from a town planning or even engineering perspective. There was a reason that the stands were left because they might have had servitudes or the terrain did not allow any structure to be built.
“What we have decided is that we reaffirm the original idea of banning of these infill stands while we address the possible loopholes together with the engineering department. For now we will collate the number of infills that have been dispatched then we see whether they are located in an area that is fit for construction,” said Mr Magagula.
The director further confirmed that they had since instituted an audit into the operations of the department to weed out any corrupt elements in the selling of stands in the city and also as a response to corruption allegations levelled against some top council officials.
“As the director of this department I have said that until we complete our internal audit these remain as mere allegations. It is unfortunate that one of our officials who was employed as an intern was recently arrested but we are saying that we really want to address all the loopholes that are within the department.
“What you should realise is that my job within the local authority is more of being an estate agent. The engineering department identifies land for stands and I simply distribute it, hence the need to ensure that there is transparency in the distribution,” said Mr Magagula.
Investigations by this publication revealed that in places like Greenhill, Tegela and Romney Park some of the houses built on infill stands have larger than usual foundations with the terrain being notable wetlands.
Responding to questions on why the local authority had resorted to infill stands, BCC public relations officer, Miss Bongiwe Ngwenya said it was at a time when the local authority could not afford servicing of new stands in the city hence the call for both residents and council officials to identify stands within serviced areas.
“What happened is that council did not have the money or resources to service new stands or suburbs therefore it was decided that we go to serviced areas where some space was left. This was done by both council officials and any member of the public,” said Miss Ngwenya.
According to council sources, more heads were set to roll within the housing department as it had been realised that a number of officials had taken advantage of the facility to partake in underhand dealings.
“The audit was initially meant to take a couple of days but it seems they are discovering a host of other irregularities regarding the sale of stands. As it stands, we expect more people to either be arrested or lose their jobs when the audit results are released,” said the source.
This comes barely a month after this publication exposed a housing stands scam within the local authority after officials shadily sold more stands than those available in Luveve suburb.
Council officials were also accused of unscrupulously fast tracking stand application forms upon receiving bribes from members of the public.
The scam also sucked in councillors who allegedly approach the senior officials within the department also seeking “favours” in the allocation of stands.
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