‘Midlands free of land barons’

Freedom Mupanedemo Midlands Bureau
Midlands is one of the few, if not the only province, without land barons who fleece home seekers of their money, especially after Government went into partnership with nine private land developers in the province, an official has said. Addressing a private land developers meeting in Gweru, Secretary for Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Engineer George Mlilo, said Harare topped the list with the largest number of land barons who advertise pieces of land and fleece desperate home seekers.

“Midlands in clean,” he said. “Harare is chaotic. It is the most chaotic. This is the challenge with private land developers now. ”There are many land barons who just advertise and start fleecing people of their hard earned money. ”This is the problem we are having in the country at the moment, especially in Harare.

”I am glad Gweru has none of those. Our partnership is smart. Its only in the Midlands province where we have not received reports of land barons going around fleecing desperate home seekers. Land developers in the Midlands province work hand in hand with our ministry to try and reduce the housing backlog and I think this should be emulated.” Eng Mlilo said it was only in the Midlands province where land developers were remitting some funds to Government.

“Midlands has nine land developers who are working hand in hand with Government and they have been making an effort to remit something to Government from what they charge to their clients,” said Eng Mlilo.

”Private developers should know that the land they sell to people belongs to Government and for as long as they haven’t paid for the intrinsic value of that land, they won’t get title deeds, so they should comply.”