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Bianca Mlilo Business Reporter
MPs have blasted housing cooperatives which fleece desperate home seekers of their hard-earned money, promising them stands but failing to deliver. Debating in Parliament on Wednesday the legislators said it was disheartening that some home seekers have been paying contributions to some housing cooperatives and still have not received the stands.
Mashonaland East MP Ms Mabel Kaundikiza asked Small to Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni to explain the behaviour of some unscrupulous cooperatives.
“What’s the government policy on people who paid their monies towards housing cooperatives for the past 10 years and haven’t received any places of residence and no audits were done on the people who received those monies?” she queried.
Minister Nyoni, in response, said cooperatives should desist from paying money to people who are not legally supposed to receive their funds. “Cooperatives aren’t supposed to pay money to anybody. When cooperatives are formed they’re supposed to pay money to themselves because they are, according to law, an independent entity,” she said.
“They must pay the money to themselves and they must be accountable to their members, supervised by the ministry. If any cooperative paid money to none other than their cooperative structure it’s them to blame because they’re not supposed to do that.”
Minister Nyoni said those with specific cases where cooperatives have been cheated by outsiders or within their structures could approach her ministry, which has a department that assists to realign those people within the laws.
“Having recognised that a lot of cooperatives are doing things out of ignorance, my ministry has put in place training for cooperatives. Before we register any cooperative, we train them first and after registration we follow up and also train them,” she said.
“If there are mistakes that were made before then, the ministry will be happy to receive those complaints and guide the cooperatives accordingly.” On the issue of title deeds, Minister Nyoni said after building similar structures for all the members, the cooperatives should approach the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing to apply for title deeds.
She said in cases of disputes within the cooperatives her ministry steps in. “When I took over the ministry there were about 68 disputes and we’ve been able to solve most of those except for seven within Harare only. So, those kinds of problems happen and when they are brought to our attention we try and solve them,” said Minister Nyoni.
“No individual will get their title deeds until all the cooperative members have agreed that they have reached a stage where all of them can satisfactorily get title deeds equally.”
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