Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
HOUSING cooperatives in Victoria Falls have appealed to Government to urgently avail land for property development as many people are in desperate need of proper accommodation.
There are about 20 housing cooperatives in Victoria Falls with over 2 000 members.
Victoria Falls’ housing waiting list is at around 15 000 while the national backlog is estimated above 2,5 million.
Speaking at a training workshop facilitated by representatives from the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development for members of Chinotimba Flea Market Housing Cooperative Wednesday, some cooperative leaders said some people have been on the housing waiting list for decades.
“We have 62 members as a housing cooperative which we formed in 2002.
“Our goal was to help each other mobilise resources and get stands from council because all our members have no houses.
“Only 24 of our members successfully acquired stands in the past which is why we are appealing to Government to direct council to avail land for us as cooperatives,” said Chinotimba Flea Market Cooperative chairman Mr Ian Sibanda.
He said the cooperative has capacity to develop and service stands once they are allocated.
Each member has been contributing towards a pool fund on a monthly basis and each has saved about US$4 000 which will be used to service the stands.
“We are happy that everyone is satisfied with the training on how to run successful businesses and make profits as well as develop a culture of saving,” he said.
A majority of the cooperative members are informal traders.
Ms Centrina Nyoni, one of the members said she had gained immense knowledge on business management from the workshop which will capacitate her to run sustainable ventures.
Another home seeker Ms Gugulethu Ndlovu implored council to be sensitive to the plight of ordinary residents.
“The cooperative members are drawn from a cross section of society and some of them are poor residents with no stable source of income but have sacrificed to save because they want houses.
‘We started this cooperative to be able to pool resources together because most people struggle to raise money.
“We plead with council to allocate some land to cooperatives for housing and make it affordable to poor citizens who mostly rely on informal trading at the flea market.
“We also want council to set aside land for informal traders to operate from so that they realise meaningful business,” she said.
The coordinator of all Victoria Falls housing cooperatives Mr Newman Moyo said their schemes had proven that they have capacity to service land on their own.
“We have some cooperatives that benefitted years back and members serviced the land on their own.
“We still have many people in need of housing stands and we appeal to Government through the council to issue out land for housing stands.
“We can service on our own because we have capacity,” he said. — @ncubeleon
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