Online Reporter
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
MUTARE City Council cannot afford to ignore informal settlements in its service delivery provision, including providing access to clean water, because if disease outbreaks erupt, they know no residential boundaries, Town Clerk, Mr Blessing Chafesuka, has said.
The City of Mutare has seen a number of informal settlements emerging in recent years mainly due to double allocations and unfulfilled land servicing obligations by unscrupulous housing cooperative leaders after sale of residential stands.
With about 1 000 households, Mahalape, located along the railway line near St Joseph’s Mission Hospital.
KwaBhuru along Magamba Road near Zimta Park suburb, is another.
Responding to a question by a resident on how long will innocent residents continue footing the bill for service delivery being provided to informal settlements, Mr Chafesuka said: “We are managing the situation in Mahalape, and we are doing that by looking at the implications of the settlement being denied basic services by council.
“We have heard that we are at high risk as a city on cholera cases. We also need to understand how this settlement came into being. We have requested to Central Government for land.
“We actually have a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Social Housing, and this is one issue we will be raising with them so that we can have somewhere to relocate them. Before getting that piece of land to relocate them, the issue of denying them clean water is a non-starter. As we speak, we all know that people in Mahalape are accessing clean water, where are they getting it from? In any case if we do not give them clean water they will perforate our water pipes to access water and that becomes a cost to us.
“When cholera affects us as a city it will not look at whether you stay in Murambi or Dangamvura. It will be a health concern for all of us. Therefore, we need to provide them with clean water.
“This is the reason we introduced some water kiosks and with a tap card they are somehow also contributing to the production of clean water. We just cannot afford to ignore Mahalape.”
Bongani Ndlovu