Govt Has New Housing Deal For Civil Servants - Minister Garwe
The Government is partnering with the private sector to provide housing stands to civil servants, reported the Chronicle.
National Housing and Social Amenities Minister Daniel Garwe said that under the scheme, the Government sells land to property developers at discounted rates and then it is given 10 percent of the serviced stands.
The stands are then allocated to civil servants.
Following a week-long strike by teachers in early 2022, the Government promised to avail non-monetary benefits to civil servants which include housing, and payment of school fees for teachers’ children, among others.
Speaking during the tour of Radar Properties, King City project housing in Umguza District last Wednesday, Garwe said:
We do not have all the resources such as adequate funding but we have affordable land.
We are therefore partnering with the private sector whereby we provide land and they service the land and give us the serviced stands for allocation to civil servants.
All we want is a small 10 percent of their serviced stands which we then allocate to Government workers.
He said for every 2 000 stands serviced by private developers, Government gets 200 stands for civil servants.
Zimbabwe has an acute housing shortage which has resulted in the mushrooming of informal settlements across the country, mainly in peri-urban areas.
In 2020, Garwe said the country’s housing waiting list was 1.3 million according to aggregated data from the local authorities.
He said the Government had started a programme of seriously engaging private sector players like blue chip companies on the Stock Exchange, manufacturers, banks and, building societies, parastatals, pension funds, insurance companies, and mining houses for resources to clear the housing backlog.
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