There have been complaints that the city fathers are allowing illegal structures to crop up again all over the city taking away the beauty of the capital.
In 2005, the government carried out Operation Murambatsvina where several illegal structures were destroyed and thousands of people rendered homeless.
Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda said council’s failure to prevent the developments, coupled with human rights considerations, made it possible for the developments to go unchecked.
“We have a problem of prevention. In the past, we used to have foot soldiers who operated from district offices and would move around their areas and would report all illegal structures to the superintendent and these would be nipped in the bud at an early stage,” Masunda said.
He added that there has not been political will to have the foot soldiers in the post- independence era and hence the proliferation of the illegal structures.
Masunda said the monitors comprised of officials from the city’s departments of health, urban planning services and education as well as housing and community services.
Illegal structures have sprout up in various suburbs in Harare where they serve a double purpose of providing accommodation to desperate residents and a source of income to stand owners.
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One such development is at stand number JJ1 in Waterfalls avenue in Ardbennie where more than 20 plastic and cardboard structures are being rented out at US$20 per month. Residents allege that the same stand is also used as a brothel and a shebeen.
The owner also sublets space on his yard to those willing to construct “cottages and tuckshops” under a contract which allows them to use the structures for as long as they want.
The tenants pay minimal rentals and later hand the structure over to the stand owner.
Council, in partnership with CABS and Old Mutual, will soon construct 3 102 housing units in Budiriro but Masunda says this is a drop in the ocean as the housing backlog is far much more than that. It is estimated that Harare’s housing backlog stands at 500 000.
