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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
Government has directed Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri to arrest all leaders of housing co-operatives who sold land to desperate home-seekers and unilaterally settled people on undesignated places.

This was revealed by Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere at a Press conference in Harare yesterday.

He said a team comprising the ministry, City of Harare and security details has since been put in place to probe the illegal land allocations.

“We have been directed as Government to deal first and foremost with the people behind these allocations. We have a list of the co-operatives which had just gone on a rampant building of houses illegally, on schools and on State land, without authorisation and, at the end of the day pocketing huge amounts of money for themselves without even giving the service,” said Minister Kasukuwere.

“I have finished a meeting with Commissioner-General of police and we have set up a team which would include security details, City of Harare and our ministry to get to the bottom of the matter.”

Minister Kasukuwere said Budiriro was “our first area of interest”, adding that Harare has 30 illegal settlements.

“The rot is quite deep in councils and other bodies, be it Government and the authorities will leave no stone unturned in unearthing who is behind it and who has been giving these people the false promises as well as the authorisation,” he said.

“We want to call upon residents to co-operate with the police in their investigations. They must come out and say the truth.

“Whoever would have received funds from these citizens must account on whose authority they acted and on whose behalf they collected the funds and on whose authority they carried out the development.

“This is a serious decision we have had to take to deal with land barons who are at the centre of this problem. We cannot accept the level of lawlessness creeping in our housing sector,” said Minister Kasukuwere.

He said the National Housing Fund should open up more land in Harare and distribute it in a transparent manner.

Several houses were demolished in Budiriro and Warren Park by Harare City Council in a crackdown aimed at restoring sanity.

The intervention by Government comes as it emerged that more than 20 000 home-seekers, mostly civil servants, lost $57 million to land barons in shady land deals in Caledonia Estate involving unscrupulous district administrators, co-operatives leaders, land developers and surveyors.

Investigations by a committee set up by the then Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo revealed that land barons used names of politicians and high-ranking Government officials to dupe desperate home-seekers.

The committee recommended the arrest of wrongdoers comprising politicians, senior civil servants and land developers.

Of the $57 million, co-operative members lost to land barons, the syndicate leader, Mr Nelson Mandizvidza, allegedly pocketed $2,8 million.

Caledonia has 23 000 residential stands measuring an average of 300 square metres each.

Home-seekers were made to pay between $3 500 and $5 000 for a stand.