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Mr Michael Chideme

Property Reporter
Property owners around the Central Business District are complying with the abatement orders that are being issued by the City of Harare in relation to health and safety standards, a council official has said. An abatement order is a directive issued by the City council to property owners instructing them to correct anomalies on or around their buildings.

“The majority of the building owners have rectified the anomalies that have been pointed to them by council,” City of Harare public relations manager Michael Chideme, said in an interview with the Property Guide.

“When a building is condemned for various reasons an abatement order is issued to the owner for them to take corrective measures. A building can be condemned because it has lost its painting, it may not have fire extinguishing equipment or even because the staircase is not functional.

“Once we issue abatement orders the owners of the building rectify the anomalies and the building continues to be in use so you see its things that can be corrected and the majority of the owners have corrected the anomalies,” he said

The City of Harare in the past years launched a blitz that condemned various buildings for flouting health and fire safety standards. Council declared several high-rise buildings unsafe or unfit for human use.

Some of the buildings, which were condemned include Robin House, Dublin House, Daventry House, Stewart and Lloyds, Bush House, Roslin House, Msasa House, Mahachi Quardum Building and Winston House.

Council could, however, not give an exact figure of how many buildings had been condemned because owners were correcting anomalies frequently and buildings remain functional.

“We can’t have an exact figure because these are things that happen every day and anomalies are corrected every day. For example if you move around First Street you will see that there are a number of buildings were corrective measures are being done so you can’t really say we have condemned so many buildings.