The Harare housing list is now useless as land barons have
wrecked havoc, the commission probing council affairs heard yesterday.
The council’s housing principal officer Edgar Dzehonye said
:“We have had situations where we have people who invade council land and then
council resolves to regularise those people. In that case, we will not be able
to follow the housing waiting list. We will then be forced to look at who has
invaded and who has had that invasion recognised.
“The people, who join co-operatives, will not be following
a particular format. So you will find out that one co-operative is prioritised
ahead of another co-operative, and you find some people who registered later
being considered while those that registered initially will not be considered
simply because their co-operative will not be ready for allocation.”
“All we have to do is to make sure we regularise, which is
basically write allocation letters for those people from the lists that are
being submitted through the district offices. This is what I meant here, that
the role of the director of housing is to really interrogate the housing
waiting list and the housing need is no longer there because the space already
comes with a list attached to it.
“We then end up being just clerical officers, just
populating our allocation letters with information that will be submitted.”
