Urban home-seekers invade rural area land

The rising cost of land in urban centres such as Harare has pushed desperate home seekers to invade adjacent rural areas, which are now experiencing increasing pressure on demand for social services.

Land fraudsters have also emerged on the scene, as well as an increase in general disorderliness in the affected areas.
Investigations by the Sunday Mail Business with support from the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) Investigative Journalism Fund have revealed that adjoining areas such as Domboshava and Goromonzi, about 30 kilometres and 40 kilometres respectively from Harare have become the locations of choice for home-seekers.,

The capital city has become overwhelmed by demand for housing that now exceeds more than half a million units.
This situation is not unique to Domboshava and Goromonzi alone, which lie on the outskirts of the capital Harare. A real estate agent indicated that the search for land had now extended to communal lands in Mazoe, Juru, Zvimba, Seke as well as Chihota. Land is relatively cheaper in these areas. The sale of rural stands has generated brisk business. It has even gone digital, with both sellers and buyers using social media platforms where land is sold through what are now known as “Sabhuku Deals.” Sabhuku is Shona word for village head.

Forty-year-old Kudzai Mhara said the cost of land in Harare had become prohibitively high. Apart from the high cost, the sale of land was now dominated by cooperatives and land barons who dupe people of their hard earned cash through illicit sales of stands. A 200 square metre stand in Harare’s high density areas now costs an average of US$7
000, while one can purchase a 500 square-metre stand for as low as US$1 500 in the rural areas.

But for 38-year-old Naison Makuyana, the serenity of a rural dwelling is the drawcard.
“After a tiresome day in the big city, I like my peace,” he said. “This place creates both peace and space for me and my family.” Pressure on amenities and food security The rising demand for rural stands has resulted in villagers sub-dividing their land including that originally set aside for cultivation. They sell the land, resulting in serious overcrowding and threatening food security.

The haphazard sale of land has given rise to land disputes due to double allocations by fraudsters, while land barons dupe unsuspecting villagers of their ancestral land for resale to home-seekers from the city.

Chief Chinamhora, born Lister Chidziva, said the situation had gotten out of hand. More than 80 percent of the disputes brought before his court these days involve clashes over land. He said the sprouting housing developments posed a serious threat to farming and the development of schools, clinics and other important social amenities.

“The situation is now bad,” he said in an interview in Domboshava.
“People are subdividing their stands for sale yet (State) land is not supposed to be sold.
Schools and clinics are now being overwhelmed as the population is rising fast without a corresponding development in social amenities. “Because of overpopulation we are now experiencing hot-sitting in our schools, something that was unheard of in this area. The problem is we are now running out of land for developing new schools and clinics and recreational facilities.”

Traditional leaders have been implicated in the land scams in which they allegedly manipulate the constitutional provisions, which make them stewards of rural land.

Section 282 of the Constitution says traditional leaders have a responsibility to manage communal lands and protect the environment.

The Communal Lands Act, a law meant to operationalise the constitutional provision in Section 4, says rural land is vested in the President who shall permit it to be occupied and used in accordance with this Act.

Despite knowing that rural land should be dispensed to individuals for free after consultation, some traditional leaders have allegedly chosen to ignore the law for profit.

“Masabhuku acho akuziva mari mazuvano, kudhara waingopiwa pakafanira (Our headmen now love money, unlike back in the day when they would allocate a suitable stand for free),” said one villager who asked not to be identified by name.    

Chief Chinamhora, who has over 200 head-man under his jurisdiction, revealed that this year alone he had stripped two of his headmen of their powers after they were involved in illegal land sales, while several others had been summoned to his courts for similar offences.

“We have had a lot of cases involving traditional leaders and land barons conniving even to dupe fellow villagers of their land,” he said.

“This is deplorable. The problem is people now report to the courts, which are higher than ours, forcing us to drop whatever charge or punishment we would have placed on offenders.”

“Ideally, when a newcomer is seeking land, we should conduct a due diligence and background checks. But this is no longer happening. Some newcomers are criminals excommunicated from their villages of origin. They are now committing crime here which has been on the increase of late.

“People are no longer safe to move around, even in their homes,” said Chief Chinamhora.
He said the number of house break-ins had increased. Meanwhile, the area had recently been making headlines for all the wrong reasons, such as regular cases of robberies.

A vendor at the Domboshawa showgrounds area said the robberies were affecting business as she was now forced to close shop early for the day. Meanwhile, there was no guarantee of safety in the home either.

“Business is usually good during the peak hour into the evening,” said one apparel vendor who identified herself as Vee.

“But it is now risky to remain open after dark these days. It is also easy to become a target in your own home if criminals know that you handle cash on a daily basis.” The situation has also led to the sprouting of unregistered colleges in the area. Undocumented residents

The challenge of illegal land sales did not start recently. Back in 2017 the Government established a team of officials to probe the rampant illegal sale of rural land in Goromonzi, which resulted in the establishment of informal settlements at the Domboshava, Majuru and Juru growth points.

National Housing and Social Amenities Minister Daniel Garwe said it was imperative that home-seekers know the land and housing delivery process before being duped by unscrupulous land barons.

He highlighted procedures that home-seekers should be familiar with when acquiring land
for housing such as issuance of a Certificate of Compliance by the respective local
authority.

The procedures also include the designing and approval of plans, inspection of various
stages of construction for buildings by local authorities, as well as issuance of a Certificate
of Occupation also by the respective local authority.

Minister Garwe said under the recently launched Zimbabwe Human Settlements Policy, all
informal settlements would be regularised and sanitised by Central Government in
conjunction with respective local authorities.

“A regularisation protocol will be developed to standardise the process,” he said via email.
“The concept of planned rural settlements will be piloted in resettlement areas in order to
provide basic services infrastructure. This will then be cascaded to other communal
areas.”
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Developments of varying proportions were observed in the Domboshava and Goromonzi
areas. District Development Coordinator (DCC) for Goromonzi Ms Prisca Dube said the
situation was chaotic and many developers risked losing out in the end as these developments were undertaken without approvals and were therefore undocumented.

She highlighted most of these developments were not registered with the authorities, a headache that required a holistic approach to address.

“People are building without proper planning under the misconception that council will regularise these developments,” Ms Dube said. “But they don’t really know what this means. You see a two bed roomed house here and the next one is a double-storey structure, which means already there are no standards followed, which is problematic.

“There is no planning, there are no proper roads or sewer systems. There are no schools or clinics. One person is digging a well here while the next is digging a pit toilet. It is a ticking time-bomb.”

She indicated that even if these developments were regularised, some developers would lose out because not everyone was going to meet the required standard for their particular area, while additional land would also be required for the construction of roads, schools and clinics.

Experts in housing development say the prevailing disorderliness will in due course create headaches when expanding cities and incorporating smart city concepts that the world over is now moving towards. The Herald