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Ishemunyoro Chingwere Business Reporter
The City of Harare is crafting a raft of standard operating procedures (SOPs) that will guide the capital’s management of its fast depleting land bank amid rising cases of graft in exploiting the bank, Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango has said.
The city has of late been dogged by fraud in the allocation of council land, a situation that is detrimental to the envisaged industrialisation and economic growth that is expected in the country under the Vision 2030 being championed by Government.
Mayor Hebert Gombe, several councillors and senior managers have to date been arrested and are under investigation for a raft of allegations most of them bordering on criminal abuse of office.
It is against this background that the city is now working on SOPs to determine how it will use its land bank for the development of the city.
Although Eng Chisango would not be drawn into revealing the specific SOPs to be adopted as they are still work in progress, he highlighted that the procedures are meant to achieve strict adherence to laws of the land, council resolutions and professionalism and thus cut on corruption.
He said the City will also seek to automate the SOPs in a bid to reduce human manipulation.
“On the 13th of August a joint seating of the Audit, Education, Health, Housing and Community Services, General Purposes and Environmental Management Committees, met to consider and approve seven SOPs for council land management,” said Eng Chisango.
“This covers administration of the land bank, creation of stands, stand surveying, valuation of stands and allocation of both residential and commercial stands presented by management.
“The SOPs will be handy in enforcing strict adherence to all laws, regulations, council resolutions and professional standards,” he said.
Although the land bank SOPs are sure to generate interest, the City of Harare has been working on SOPs for the rest of all its operations the last 12 months but progress has been curtailed by Covid-19 induced lockdowns.
While it had targeted to develop and validate 1700 SOPs for all its operations, it has so far managed 500 and is now hoping to finalise the rest by year end.
Businesses who are on the lookout for commercial land in the city as well as citizens looking for residential stands to develop will be on the lookout for progress on the SOPs as these will determine procedures and processes with which they can acquire city land.
Meanwhile the city’s revenue streams have taken a knock due to Covid-19 and this has been further exacerbated by expenditure on the pandemic, thus affecting planned infrastructure projects.
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