Chronicle EditorSikhumbuzo Moyo in Dete
OPPOSITION councillor for Ward 18 in Dete, Hwange district Cllr Stanley Torima has rubbished previous claims that the Government was neglecting Mtuya residents whose houses are built of poles and mud.
In an interview, Cllr Torima of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) said those who are still staying at the houses and claiming neglect were their own victims as they had an opportunity to own decent homes when the Government launched Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle in June 2005. Instead, he said, they chose to politic over the operation, claiming it was a Zanu-PF project that would be reversed after elections.
Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle was launched in June 2005 to offer decent accommodation to urban dwellers and informal businesses whose slums had been pulled down a month earlier during Operation Murambatsvina.
Suitable land was quickly identified where better houses and markets were built.
The properties were allocated to those who had been removed from their informal structures.
Within a month or two, tents and roofing sheets fashioned into dwellings that were leaky and could be blown away by the wind anytime were replaced by more secure, solid, better-planned and legitimate homes.
“I am an opposition party member but sometimes, the truth has to be told. The Government had provided an opportunity for people to get decent accommodation but some saw politics even if there was none. Those who took heed are still living in those houses channelled under the operation, almost two decades later and there is no indication whatsoever that they will be evicted,” said Cllr Torima.
He said while the operation may initially have been viewed with a sceptic eye, it is clear that the idea was a noble one as many citizens are now owning decent homes.
“As residents, there is a need sometimes to say the truth instead of always blaming the Government for our shortfalls. Being in opposition doesn’t mean we must always oppose for the simple reason of opposing,” he said.
A resident, Gogo Monica Ncube, who started living at Mtuya Township in 1983, said she didn’t take up the offer to be allocated a house because “we were told that ngokweZanu-PF.”
“I believed that the operation was just a smokescreen by Zanu-PF who would either chuck us out after the elections or the new governing party will reverse that as they were telling us the new houses were just temporary and uninhabitable,” said Gogo MaNcube.
The old township was established in the 1960s and has more than 500 houses built initially to accommodate migrant workers who were employed by Rhodesia Railways (now National Railways of Zimbabwe) and Dete Ceramics.
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