MDC Alliance leader Mr Nelson Chamisa has been sucked into
the latest swirl of residential stands allocation scam in the capital city,
amid revelations that the opposition has been stripping the council of land to
finance its subversive intentions and prepare for the 2023 harmonised
elections.
Already, over a dozen Harare City Council officials,
including MDC-A Mayor Herbert Gomba, human resources and former housing
director Matthew Marara, the city’s town planner Samuel Nyabeze and surveyor
Munyaradzi Bowa have been arrested on a string of allegations that include
criminal abuse of office and corruption.
But their arrest could just be a tip of the iceberg of the
rot in MDC Alliance run councils countrywide that have been invaded by the
party heavyweights to finance their fancy lives, sponsor subversion as well as
set a war chest for the 2023 elections.
At the centre of the scandal are MDC councillors, Mr
Chamisa himself, his secretary-general Mr Charlton Hwende, some captured
persons in the justice delivery chain and the councillors who use control of
the capital city to blatantly disregard the housing waiting list and milk the
council of millions of dollars through undervaluing properties.
Sources inside council and in the MDC-A said there was a
resolution that was passed by the opposition party last year that they needed
to take advantage of controlling the country’s major cities to finance party
programmes, including the planned July 31 demonstration.
Information gleaned from various sources revealed that the
only two MDC-A councillors, who are not involved in stripping the city of land
out of the 45, are Mr Ian Makone (Ward 18) and Ward 4 councillor Mrs Tracey
Chagarisa as the party accumulates wealth in what has left the capital with no
open space or land banks.
Investigations by The Herald also established that, because
of the elaborate planning from the MDC-A hierarchy, a process that could take
weeks or months to complete would be done in less than two hours, while council
resolutions could be fast-tracked to ensure those who were sold the residential
stands, often-times who jumped the housing waiting list, had their residential
stands in a matter of hours.
“They agreed that the process of fundraising was both for
2023 and to fund party activities, including destabilising the country at a
meeting that was held in December last year,” said an insider familiar with the
illegal allocation and parcelling of stands to MDC-A kingpins and apologists.
For instance, councillor for Ward 16 Denford Ngadziore got
36 stands in the Westlea area where home-seekers would be made to pay in US
dollars but the intrinsic value would be paid in local currency.
In Strathaven 30 residential stands were sold for US$30 000
and after getting the money, the MDC-A councillors paid ZW$17 000 to council.
Stands 1041-1044 in Morningside measuring 2 000 square
metres were sold for US$50 000 and ZW$25 000 was paid to Harare City Council.
Apart from targeting individuals, the MDC-A web of
corruption also roped in companies that were either linked to the party
directly or indirectly.
“In December 2019 the MDC came up with a list of companies
to give land to. Hayes Construction, whose director is Mr Charlton Hwende, was
given a site to build flats in Southerton. Another company, AM Machado
Construction received land and did not pay. The process of giving these
companies land was done in one day and then they backdated a resolution in
March this year that the companies would not pay but would choose a social
responsibility programme they could support,” another top council official
said.
Contacted for comment, Mr Hwende said: “I am not a director
of Hayes Construction. I don’t own that company. The only company I am a
director of is Twinsday Logistics based in Namibia.
“I would not deny it
if I had properly applied for land and I am given that land.”
Notwithstanding that they were not on the housing waiting
list, the party leaders were also pampered with residential stands.
“Mr Chamisa was allocated a 3 000-square-metre stand number
19740 in Gunhill. There is no record of payment. His brother Starman was
allocated a residential stand measuring 2 000 square metres opposite the United
States embassy in Westgate in 2019, the stand was only paid for recently, this
is despite the fact that he had a stand in Sunningdale allocated on a
recreational tennis court. He, however, sold the stand in connivance with
Marara.
“Another beneficiary is Mr Murisi Zwizai who got a stand
behind Borrowdale Police Station, again without following the council
processes,” said a senior council official in the housing department.
Asked for a comment, Mr Chamisa’s spokesperson Nkululeko Sibanda
said: “We need to go through what you are saying.”
With councillors playing ball, the MDC-A then compromised
persons occupying positions of influence in government institutions such as the
police and the judiciary.
Information gleaned by The Herald revealed that top cops,
senior judicial officers including those from the Prosecutor General offices
and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) were “bought by residential
stands” even though they were not on the waiting list.
“Four ZACC investigators, including a commissioner, were
given residential stands in Greendale. The police were also compromised,
especially the law and order section, the homicide department and also the
commercial crimes unit, those people were bought through the elaborate scheme
so that when the situation comes to light it would be handled with friendly
forces. The majority of residential stands in wetlands in Westlea were given to
police officers and senior officials in the judiciary,” another councillor told
this publication.
Besides giving land to councillors, the police and other
key officials, the MDC corruption web also included its political activists
such as Mr Mfundo Mlilo, who got a 3 000-square-metre stand opposite PetroTrade
along the Bulawayo Road and Mr Pedzisai Ruhanya, who got a stand even though he
was not on the housing waiting list.
Bet when Kuwadzana and White House, another suburb, that is
mainly resided by MDC-A activists was created by the opposition to create an
exclusive enclave for subversive purposes. About 256 stands were also created
in Westlea and curiously the majority of those allocated stands there are from
the police force.
Having captured some police and judicial officers and also
investigators from ZACC so as to cover their tracks, the scheming MDC-A also
gave residential stands to some of the country’s musicians such as Thomas
Mapfumo, Peter Moyo and Brahman Chizvino, popularly known as Baba Harare.
“The musicians were targeted to ensure that they would
compose pro-MDC Alliance jingles and subversive songs between now and the
elections. Mapfumo got a residential stand in Glen Lorne while Moyo and
Chizvino got theirs in Mufakose.”
Today Harare, once the sunshine city, is a pale shadow of
its former glorious self — refuse goes uncollected, rivulets of sewage flow in
the high density suburbs while the open spaces have all been sold to finance
the MDC-A activities.
The city currently has no land bank as most of the land has
been parcelled out to MDC-A cronies and to specific people of authority and
influence in some government institutions. Herald
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