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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Senior Reporter

arbitrary sums ranging from US$2 000 to US$10 000 that Harare City Council wants to charge residents settled on undesignated land so their stands can be regularised cannot be enforced since they were set before the council puts together a proper valuation roll to determine the value of the land and determined the cost of the servicing that is needed.

Council last year passed a resolution to regularise properties for residents who will pay US$2 000 for stands in high density, US$6 000 in medium density areas and US$10 000 for low density stands. The money was meant to provide the layouts, sewers, roads, storm drains and water mains needed for servicing the stands.

But in an interview, Harare Province Secretary for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Mr Tafadzwa Muguti said the proposed fees had not been categorised, hence they were illegal. The council needed to come up with a proper valuation of the land, draw up the complete layout plans and cost the services.

“We stopped Chitungwiza Municipality in December when they wanted to charge residents US$1 500 because there are proper procedures for regularisation of land. Regularisation of land entails the Ministry of Local Government of Public Works, the Ministry of National Housing, the Environmental Management Agency and the local authority itself.

“There are other stakeholders who might be adjacent to the local authorities and so on. But as it is, it is difficult for a local authority to go and charge money because none of our local authorities have up-to date valuation rolls and the land bank is a mess,” he said.

He said the council could not just come up with a figure without carrying out proper valuation of the land.

Among stipulated guidelines for regularisation is the provision of approved town planning layout plan, water and sewer designs, survey layout plan, road and storm water drain designs.

Mr Muguti said council could not offer services to homes that were in irregular settlements without following the regularisation processes for the stands to be properly accounted for by the local authority, and this meant following procedures in the Constitution and the Consumer Protection Act.

With regards to residents settled in wetlands and near streams, Mr Muguti said it was difficult to regularise such stands as they were not compliant with many laws. Many residents in areas like Budiriro, Hopley, Southlea Park and parts of Chitungwiza were hit by flooding last week owing to the incessant rains received since the New Year, some because of inadequate storm water drains and some because the land could not be drained.

“This is why you find that in Budiriro for example, whenever it rains, there are floods. The terrain there doesn’t allow us to put roads because it is a swamp, so you cannot lay sewer or even put a foundation of a house in a swamp. In addition, that area is a river way and it marks part of a territory that is also under ZESA servitude so we have heavy duty power cables running across Harare province and Mashonaland West. Even if EMA had said yes to those settlements, Zesa would have said no,.

He said his greatest concern was that Harare City Council was not taking accountability for its actions and was still charging the affected families every month for services that were not being provided.

Mr Muguti said regularising all illegal settlements would be a tall order for Government and local authorities considering the magnitude of the problem. “There are so many houses which have been built in wetlands. A good example is Chitungwiza, which has over 40 000 homes that are illegally placed and this alone creates serious disparities in terms of application of the law,” he added.

He said the Government now had the map for all the wetlands for Harare province and it was imperative that EMA works with the city councils to work out where building could take place and where this was impossible.

“Unfortunately there is a lot of corruption, especially in the City of Harare and in Chitungwiza, where wetlands are being sold and papers being backdated. We need to start going deeper to discover why they are disregarding the EMA Act so much,” said Mr Muguti.