Story by Oleen Ndori
GOVERNMENT has implored home seekers to ensure all applications and acquisitions are above board, as the Second Republic targets to deliver one million housing units by 2025.
Responding to questions from the media during the inaugural Ministers Meet the Media Forum in Harare this Thursday, National Housing and Social Amenities Minister Honourable Zhemu Soda said the current crisis of home demolitions stem from irregular acquisition or building on improperly acquired land, urging all potential home seekers to be diligent.
“To our potential home seekers, all applications and acquisitions must be above board. Whenever that is done irregularly, obviously the harm of the law will take its course. We encourage all home seekers, despite their desperation, that acquisition of ten houses must be done properly. Whenever it is not done properly, there are problems that are associated with that. Already, we are grappling with the issue of regularisation of dysfunctional settlements that were created previously where people just went on to construct their homes without adequate supporting services like roads, the other amenities, schools, crèches and even the shopping centres. They are supposed to be there to support a community or a settlement. So we are at the moment grappling with that correction,” he said.
Honourable Soda also revealed government is intervening in providing solutions to poor town planning by the City of Harare which has led to illegal structures, with some being built on wetlands.
“The issue comes back to Harare City Council, where there has to be new planning for the discharge of waste, especially from the houses that are being constructed and also the other link has been to the wetlands where we are finding that some houses are now being constructed in wetlands which ordinarily are not supposed to be available for house construction.
“All that comes back to the issue of planning, which the city of Harare is responsible for and even the upgrades of the waste management and waste reticulation assistance. But as a ministry, working together with them, it is our wish that whenever people are being settled, the places must be habitable, places which are not susceptible to hazards like natural hazards. Plus, for instance, what we did in Budiriro 5B in 2021, where some families were left homeless as a result of poor planning. So it is our hope that whenever our local authorities are allocating areas for settling people, the areas must be suitable, properly planned so that we don’t have a repeat of what’s currently obtaining.”
The Housing Minister also celebrated significant milestones his portfolio has made towards national housing targets which have been revised to one million housing units by 2025.
“When we speak of housing delivery as a ministry, it is not the Ministry of National Housing that is supposed to be constructing all the houses. But we work with a number of stakeholders like pension funds, insurance schemes, individuals in civil society, banks and the private sector. It was enunciated by His Excellency the President that the realisation of Vision 2030 would be private sector-led.
“So, we are crowding in the private sector, obviously by way of creating a conducive investment environment where they are finding business and participating in the housing delivery sector. The initial target like I indicated was 220,000 housing units. As we took stock in April last year, we realised that we have done 282,000 houses then we reviewed the target to 1 million housing units. As we speak, we have already achieved more than 700,000 housing units which accounts for more than 70% of our targets and that incurs the possibility of achieving our target by 2025.”
Under the National Development Strategy One, the Housing Delivery Cluster is among the 14 key areas being prioritised by the economic blueprint.
