The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has said the Harare City Council ignored an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in allocating residential stands to Budiriro 5 CABS area homeowners whose houses have been inundated by floodwaters.

A Budiriro resident, Catherine Mugore, told ZBC News that an EIA conducted by EMA marked coordinates for the area, which showed the dangers of allocating residential on a river course. She said:

All these houses which you see submerged in water were condemned by EMA a long time ago.

EMA noted that all the stands they red-flagged out of their coordinates were not supposed to be used or inhabited.

EMA Principal Officer Liberty Mugadza told ZBC News that they gave the City of Harare a map of the area indicating where houses should not be built. Said Mugadza:

An Environmental Impact Assessment must be done before any construction takes place but for the situation on the ground that was not done and efforts to ratify after the council had allocated land were then done when the council approached EMA.

An ecological assessment was done and demarcations were put where it’s possible to build and where it cannot be done.

All this information was given to the planning department at the local authority.

Now what is coming to our surprise is the time taken to effect the necessary changes.

Zimbabwe Human Rights Association chairperson, Takesure Musiiwa said the local authority claims residents settled on the land illegally but the homeowners have proof of payment to the council. He said:

The situation I am seeing here in Budiriro is vice versa. Instead of the council approaching EMA, they are inviting EMA to look into the current problems.

The council claims the affected people illegally acquired the stands, but if you go to the residents, they have proof of payment to the council. So, it gives a discord to what is happening.

Fifty-one Budiriro 5B Extension residents have been moved to a temporary evacuation centre after their houses were submerged by water from the adjacent Marimba River when it broke its banks, a senior government official was reported as saying.

Ministry of Local Government and Public Works communication and advocacy director Gabriel Masvora said that a minor aged six years was swept away in the Marimba River. Her body was later retrieved.

Masvora said the rains had damaged property valued at nearly US$189 000 in Budiriro and Kuwadzana Paddocks.

More: Pindula News