HUNDREDS of people risk losing residential properties in
the newly-established medium and high-density suburbs of Kia Ora in Banket
after it emerged that former Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere
forced council to allocate residential stands on State land.
Former Lands minister Douglas Mombeshora had reportedly
refused to transfer the land to the Local Government ministry, citing shortage
of agriculture land, but later transferred it after being informed that Zanu PF
had already dished out stands to help secure the 2013 vote.
Kasukuwere allegedly gave the local authority verbal
consent to service and allocate the stands, saying the transfer documents would
be processed at a later stage.
Investigations by NewsDay have shown that stands
allocations were done through the then Zanu PF councillors as a vote-buying
gimmick.
The Banket Town Board is now embroiled in a land ownership
wrangle with three of the beneficiaries of the land reform programme whose
400-hectare plot was illegally parcelled out to the 400 homeseekers by the
Zvimba Rural District Council.
The newly-appointed Banket town board was last week given
the task of protecting people who had built their homes on the land, after the
land-grab was challenged.
Zvimba Rural District Council chief executive Richard
Muganhiri called upon the town board to move with speed and regularise the land
allocation to protect hundreds of people who had already built homes on the
stands.
“The onus is on the board to come up with ways that will
see that our ratepayers are protected and to make sure that we get ownership of
the land from the Local Government (ministry), which seems to be reluctant to
hand over the land to council, so that people who have built on the land with
the understanding that we were going to get official confirmation of the land
from Local Government ministry are protected from having their homes
demolished,” Muganhiri said during a recent Banket town board meeting recently.
The Banket Town Board, led by ward 23 councillor Muganhiri,
also includes ward 22 councillor Never Hutepasi (vice-chairperson), Zvimba
district medical officer Dr Terrence Dandadzi, ward 17 councillor Tobias
Mapuvire and Grain Marketing Board Banket depot manager Abigail Muziti, with
Zvimba Rural District Council chairperson Tsitsi Kaja as an ex-officio board
member.
Muganhiri said they only managed to get Mombeshora to
transfer the land to the Local Government ministry after council had already
allocated the stands.
“Initially, the land was taken haphazardly through the
former Zanu PF councillors at the time, as we were heading for elections, with
the understanding that paperwork will be done. It was only after I came and
explained to the then minister Mombeshora that people had already built on the
land – after he had initially refused to hand over the land as he argued that
there was not enough agriculture land in the country – that he wrote to the
Local Government ministry to the effect that he was offering the land for
residential purposes,” Muganhiri told NewsDay.
“Kasukuwere then gave us the green light to allocate and
service stands at the area while he said documents were being sorted, and that
never happened. Now the people have been summoned by the farmers who had been
allocated the land by the Lands ministry, but council has no proof of ownership
of the land, so the people are vulnerable to demolitions. We have appealed to
the Local Government ministry to regularise the land so our people are
protected.”
Efforts to get a comment from Kasukuwere and Mombeshora were
fruitless. Newsday
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