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The issuance of title deeds under the Presidential Title Deeds Programme is set to commence in earnest during the first week of July. Our reporter Wallace Ruzvidzo (WR) sat down with National Housing and Social Amenities Permanent Secretary Engineer Theodius Chinyanga (EC) who spoke at length on the modalities of their issuance as well as the technical aspects that Government has been working on, among other issues.
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WR: PS can you explain what these title deeds mean to the stand owners.
EC: A title deed is a paper that demonstrates ownership and it’s the last thing. Once its issued, it means a development has satisfied all conditions. Now let me relate the issue of the Presidential title deed programme.
Vision 2030 also relates to housing issues. If a country is an upper-middle income society, it also relates to the ownership structure or tenure in terms of housing and a title deed is one such contract.
What it means is there are people living in urban areas who have lived there; even in Government, council houses without title deeds. To satisfy Vision 2030, the housing sector must also move to this kind of ownership. This project was launched in Epworth. When the President is sworn in, one of the major items he swears to is upholding the Constitution and the laws of Zimbabwe.
The President as a leader defines the end point, he doesn’t define the processes and when he defines the end point he has not broken neither does he want to breach his own laws, this is where we come in as technocrats. NDS1 defines the path that we follow in terms of projects as sectors, the end point for us is title deeds.
WR: What is it that must be done to obtain title deeds?
EC: When you are developing land you are given a compliance certificate which is the one that unlocks or enables the surveyor general to initiate a deed. The property must have an address, a street address.
There are, however, no services, so in the meantime we have houses that were developed by Government and they have tenants.
There are also houses that were already bought by tenants and these must be given title deeds because they did not have.
We have a total of 21 000 such houses, with tenants who are prepared to receive title deeds, but before we issue title deeds, we must satisfy ourselves that the person who signed the document is the one we are communicating with. If you remember well, we flight adverts calling people to come and verify their files, that is the process. We verify first because others might have died, but had settled their payments.
Luckily for us the agreement of sale stipulates that you state your spouse and children so that if a person passes on, they are not given to the wrong people.
Secondly, all old suburbs were built by Government, then given to local authorities to manage, it was not the tenant’s house, but council’s so we are saying lets now sell or transfer to the sitting tenant. The council must also do corporate governance processes.
It’s a process that council must produce a resolution with a list of those properties. Once they are out there, they will now be ready for title deeds.
The third tier is informal settlements such as in Harare South, that’s where regularisation and sanitisation come in. For example, Epworth was a settlement created by war, so people fled and came to town. That land historically belonged to some church, so they were taking in internally displaced people and giving them shelter, then it was donated to Government for management, so it’s an informal settlement.
This means it needs planning, designs for services, which is what has already happened there. Now they are waiting for the contractor to come on site so that we do the roads, water and sewer, making it compliant with the country’s laws.
Harare South is orderly and approved by Government, but it does not have services. What it means is that we just need financial deployment and a contractor to put in services then we issue title deeds, so those are the three tiers of properties we will be talking about when we say Presidential Title Deeds Programme.
WR: Can you outline the specifics for the sanitisation?
EC: We have got a trust called Kwangu, which is a medium entity between us and banks. It has trustees who are private businesspeople, who have along their lives gained the confidence of financial institutions.
Now they are standing between Government and the financial sector, and they help us to get money for development as we are getting compliant. When the title deed comes out, it will be put on a bond. The rates which will be paid once compliance is achieved will be ring fenced so that the tenants are able to pay back the money loaned for infrastructure. It’s not for free, we are bonding these properties, because the banks that are raising money, led by CBZ Bank, will want their money back.
WR: What is the other role for Kwangu Trust?
EC: Kwangu Trust is busy setting up site offices and these will be carrying out the processes because they are now digital. The database is logged on site, they have actually set up offices here (ministry) to receive all verified files and digitise them.
Next time we will be talking of file numbers, not physical files. We will now be putting in the details of the beneficiary and dependants. All the information will be transmitted to the deeds office then the digitised title deed is issued which has a hologram, QR code and the barcode, those are the security features that will be found. You will see numbers like 55 000 in Chitungwiza, 18 000 in Epworth and so on, those are real numbers, they are not thumb-suck, because we have been working with the trust all along, doing all the donkey work. We have just not been announcing.
WR: When will the title deeds be issued?
EC: The proper issuance of title deeds will start from July, a dry-run has already been done. The printing centre its ready to start printing, the securitised paper is already in the country and the number is good enough to start and the verification we are doing is advanced. We are doing it step by step, it’s not about Epworth, it’s about the nation. We have local authorities that are well ahead.
The President launched it in Epworth, but we want him to do a national launch of this programme. We have local authorities that are well ahead of all that I have stated. Kwekwe started long back on its own properties as well as Gweru and Bulawayo. They are so much ahead that Kwangu Trust will only be going to do the digitisation, not the other processes.
WR: Thank you very much for your time and clarity PS.
EC: You are most welcome.
Online Reporter