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Blessing Malinganiza Herald Reporter
MDC-T MP for Southerton Mr Gift Chimanikire has come under fire for rearing pigs at his Belvedere, Harare, home, with neighbours complaining that the animals were making noise and producing a bad smell.
They said they had tried to talk to the legislator, but without success.
“The smell is affecting us and we have tried all things possible to talk to him but to no avail and this has shown that he has no respect for his neighbours’’, said one of his neighbours who declined to be named.
Another neighbour who requested for anonymity said the legislator should know that it was inappropriate to keep swine at a residential property.
“Pigs should not be kept within 60 metres from a dwelling, let alone a residential one because they create a significant odour and waste. It is against the city’s by-laws,” said the resident.
Mr Chimanikire yesterday said he was in a meeting with his father-in-law and was too busy to entertain a reporter.
The city’s acting corporate communications manager Mr Michael Chideme said Belvedere was not in an agro region, therefore, it was illegal to keep animals such as pigs.
“It is illegal to keep livestock in Belvedere. It is not an agro region. The owner has to move the animals now or we will confiscate them,” said Mr Chideme.
Early this year council invoked a 1962 city by-law which forbids the keeping of fowls close to premises used for human habitation.
“No poultry house shall be placed nearer than three metres from any boundary or nearer than six metres from premises used for human habitation,”
“No person shall keep any poultry by reasons of continued crowing, quacking clucking, gobbling or like noise (that) tends to destroy the comfort of the neighbourhood,” the council by-law reads.
According to the (Public Health) by-laws 1962, section 25, residents are allowed to keep only 25 chickens at a time on their property unless they apply for a licence from the City Health Department.
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