Chronicle EditorPatrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
GOVERNMENT has approved the expansion programme for Chirumanzu Rural District Council (RDC) by allocating it more land surrounding Mvuma town.
Mvuma district administrator Mr Tapson Chivanga confirmed the development during the Chirumhanzu RDC first planning committee meeting held at the council chambers on Friday.
He said there was a need for the RDC to adopt the guidelines and recommendations for compensation of local communities displaced by growth point expansion and rural development projects.
The guidelines and recommendations, which were produced by a Midlands Working Group which had representatives from the Government and the eight rural district councils in the province, were supported by the Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation (CCMT).
They have so far been adopted by four RDCs; Gokwe South, Vungu, Runde and Chirumhanzu.
“We have over 100 families that will be affected by the development of Mvuma town which is under Chirumhanzu and we need such guidelines and recommendations for compensation of local communities displaced by growth point expansion and rural development projects. This is very important to avoid conflict,” said Mr Chivanga.
Adopting the guidelines and recommendations, planning committee chairperson Councillor Tremendous Musara said the RDC applied to the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Settlement for more land for expansion of Mvuma town — an application which was granted.
“Mvuma as a town is poised for growth and families will be displaced. So we have adopted these guidelines and recommendations as a committee and we will take them before a full council soon,” he said.
“The development of Mvuma will however, result in the displacement of about 100 families who have plots along the Harare-Masvingo Highway and some in resettlements surrounding Mvuma. So we need a guiding document to deal with those who have developed the plots by putting permanent structures,” said Clr Musara.
He said there was also a need for the council to quickly put boundaries before people develop their properties to avoid conflict with communities.
The guidelines and recommendations are coming at a time when some growth points in the province are expanding while there has not been meaningful development in others since Government designated certain sites as either controlled business centres or Growth Points earmarked for urbanisation.
Some of these centres whose boundaries were gazetted through Statutory Instrument 378 of 1982 have expanded so much that they have exhausted all the land within their gazetted boundaries and hence the need to expand these boundaries.
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