Council Concerned About Illegal Land Invasions In Harare Suburbs

The Harare City Council (HCC) has issued a press statement expressing concern over the illegal land invasions taking place in several suburbs within the City of Harare. In a statement seen by Pindula News, the city fathers said the land barons involved in these activities are fabricating allocation letters, receipts and diagrams to deceive unsuspecting home seekers, and forcing them to erect illegal structures overnight. Council has referred these cases to relevant law enforcement agents and the City’s Audit Division for prosecution. It is important to note that the City’s initiative to regularize settlements is being abused by the land barons, who are misleading residents that such settlements will be regularized. Residents are advised to remove the illegal structures themselves or risk demolition by the Development Control Section. We present the statement below:

PRESS STATEMENT ON NEW LAND INVASIONS

Council has noted with concern the continuous illegal land invasions in various suburbs such as Glen View, Retreat (Harare-Chitungwiza Railway Reservation), Budiriro, Mufakose, Crowborough, Kuwadzana, Tafara/Mabvuku, Kambuzuma, Warren Park, Glen Norah, Mabelreign, Chisipite and The Grange among other surbubs.

Land barons are generating fake allocation letters, receipts and diagrams to which they use to dupe unsuspecting home seekers.
The cases are being referred to the relevant law enforcement agents and City’s Audit Division for prosecution.

Council has noted that the land barons are misleading the beneficiaries that once they settle on these unplanned spaces, the City of Harare will regularise the areas.

The landbarons literally force the beneficiaries to put up illegal structures under the cover of the night and weekends and demand that someone must reside in these mostly wooden cabins and substandard structures.

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This is clear misinterpretation and abuse of section 74 of Zimbabwe’s constitution which requires Local Authorities to obtain a court order in order to remove an illegal structure being used as a home.

It must also be said that, City of Harare’s noble initiative to try and regularize old settlements that suit the regularization template generated by the City is now being abused by lands barons through fresh land invasions and falsely believe that such settlements will be regularized.
Residents are advised that, Section 49 of the Regional Town and Country Planning Act has no provision for regularization in retrospect of settlements located in reservation sites such as wetlands, institutional and recreational parks.

Additionally, the land barons mislead residents that due to the forthcoming elections, no illegal structures will be demolished since they have “political protection.”

This is a lie and residents are advised not to believe such deceptions. There is no single political party that owns or encourages land barons to engage in their nefarious and illegal settlement on open space and ecologically sensitive wetlands and such settlements will not be spared from demolitions.

Our Development Control Section now has the database of old and fresh illegal land invasions and will soon deploy bulldozers to remove such illegal settlements in the coming weeks.

All the necessary enforcement procedures and logistics are already in place and residents are strongly advised to remove the said illegal structures by themselves or risk the inevitable demolitions.

The City is determined to restore order in all areas within its confines.

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