Urban expansion ‘eats’ into farmland

Blessings Chidakwa Mash West Correspondent
Mashonaland West Province is battling against local authorities that are converting farms into residential stands, a senior Government official has revealed. Provincial administrator Ms Cecilia Chitiyo recently told Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister July Moyo in Kadoma that the province was grappling with soaring cases of local authorities that were parcelling out land belonging to farmers with offer letters to private property developers.

“Zvimba Rural District Council (RDC) is converting farms for urban development,” she said. “(In) Lot 12 and 14 (and a) portion of Donfontein, people have already moved in.

“In Chegutu, private developers were given land where people have offer letters. In this case, people with offer letters had already built permanent structures.”

Ms Chitiyo said in Kadoma, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement was allocating land for urban settlement earmarked for the municipality.

“The people allocated this municipal land have produced offer letters,” she said. “Political interference is also a cause for concern in the area as prior to the new dispensation some politicians were fingered to have corruptly influenced the allocation of land.”

Minister Moyo said Government had been seized with the issue of peri-urban conflicts for more than a decade.
“The issue had been with us for more than a decade now and as a ministry, we decided to bring the affected parties together to see their challenges and map a way forward,” he said.

Minister Moyo acknowledged that some local authorities had been affected by the disputes.