Govt orders BCC to act on absentee landlords

Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE Government has ordered the Bulawayo City Council to deal with individuals that abandon their houses, renting them out while neglecting to pay rates and rentals.

This came out during a tour of Cowdray Park Hlalani Kuhle houses by the Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Cde July Moyo recently where council officials revealed that one of the major challenges in connecting water to the houses was the unavailability of bonafide owners.

BCC Director of Engineering Services, Engineer Simela Dube revealed that in some cases when they connected water to a house, neighbouring houses without connections tended to then abuse the water, taking advantage of that they were mainly tenants, and once the local authority shut down supplies, they would just move to another house. He said in most cases the landlords would also neglect to pay the resultant high bills thereby prejudicing the local authority.

“The major challenge we are facing here, in terms of connecting water to the individual houses, is mainly because people here are what I will describe as nomadic, where the actual people who bought the houses do not stay here, rather they rent them out.

“In the event that we then are able to connect the water to a house all the neighbouring tenants come to that house, target it and this results in the water bill ballooning and since the owners do not stay here, this bill can also go unpaid,” said Eng Dube.

The director said the local authority now had the task of completing the sewer reticulation system in the suburb, which he noted had its complications but they required $300 million to complete the entire project.

“The challenge with us ensuring the entire suburb is connected to sewer is that the area is rocky so it is hard for us to dig and we also cannot blast because already there are houses constructed. This is the reason that most of these houses are using Blair toilets.

“Further when it rains there is the proliferation of natural wells of which most residents go on to use, which therefore gives us health challenges. However, for us to be able to complete sewer reticulation in the suburb we need about $300 million of which we will take about four to five years to complete the project,” said Eng Dube.

Commenting on the project, Cde Moyo questioned why the local authority continued entertaining the issue of absent landlords if it was going on to affect service delivery to the area.

“It is simple, if council sells a house to Mguni and Mguni decides to rent it out to ZBC with ZBC going on to having a negative effect on service delivery like abusing water or not paying rates then the solution is easy, council should just repossess the property,” he said.

On the development of the suburb to ensure all services are completed, the Minister said the task now was with Government and the local authority to work together and ensure required funds are sought.

“In Cowdray Park Hlalani Kuhle, we know that we have a lot of legacy issues. When Government decided that local authorities take over such projects, we also knew that we have an obligation, the President has also told us to come to the ground and work with councils ensuring that there is no Government or council approach but we all work together, because what the people want are results.

“The local authority has given us a figure of $300 million that is required for them to complete the sewer reticulation and the purchasing of water meters, so that residents are able to pay for the water they use. We are sure that we will start on this project soon so that the required money is found and we work on the pending works,” said the Minister.

He said it was worrying that a suburb in a city setup was still using Blair toilets at a time when the world was moving towards abolishing this type of system. Cowdray Park Hlalani Kuhle has over the years presented BCC with a headache as the suburb had no sewer or water reticulation system which saw residents in the suburb resorting to the illegal construction of Blair toilets to avoid open defecation. The houses have had no sewer reticulation since the area was established in 2006.

In July last year, the local authority repossessed 179 stands after the owners failed to develop them since they were allocated. Council officially took over the Cowdray Park Hlalani Kuhle project in 2012, in keeping with the Cabinet decision of May 2009 which had directed that all projects be handed over to local authorities.