Like a sandcastle on a wet beach, a house of cards is bound to fall. It can be blown away by the gentlest of winds or toppled by the whisk of a finger, whichever the case, failure is its ultimate existence. This has seemingly been the case for many people investing in land in Zimbabwe, especially when settling for urban areas. Investing in property has always been a sport of sweat and tears of toil so when one successfully acquires it, the gratifying feeling is unmatched. It is your home, your fortress, your legacy and hopefully the seeds of generational wealth. You’re set for life! One can only imagine the devastating experience of having this taken away from you. This darkness has befallen many whose property has been demolished by government after being earmarked as illegal developments. But, how did it get here?
Property demolitions are not new in the country’s history with the most notable one being Operation Murambatsvina which robbed 700 000 Zimbabweans of their homes in 2005 as the UN reports. Subsequent occurrences followed across the country in 2015, 2016 and most recently in 2020 and 2021. This year, the government plans to displace approximately 21 000 households with the most –15 000 households – located in the capital, Harare. Target areas are commonly low income communities in high density locations, peri-urban zones and along road servitudes. The narrative has been that demolitions are a method of curbing unplanned shanty developments of informal businesses and residential housing as per the town planning Act. It is well founded since some had become impediments to vehicular traffic, crime hotspots, brothels and illicit drugs hubs. However, does the strategy employed protect the victim of loss of their property rights, notwithstanding the crucial question of how the situation escalated under the authorities’ watch?
Cause Comes Before Effect
The weight on the undeserving victims clearly dwarfs any justification for the means. A number of reasons formulate the complex system by which with citizens become prey. It consists of the people themselves, local authorities, professionals, government and politicians as a sum of parts.
The most common cases (such as in Budiriro, Glen View and Melfort) involve criminal individuals known as land barons. They illegally acquire land and parcel it out to unsuspecting home seekers who have been on the rise generally due to rural-urban migration causing shortage of space. The entrapped pay monthly instalments to these land barons usually fronting as housing development cooperatives until the purchase of the subject land is complete. Homeseekers are desperate, under pressure and devoid of knowledge on how to authenticate a legitimate housing scheme. These developments have no permits, planning or zoning but are left to continue. This hinges on the next factor, politics!
Land barons are anointed, endorsed and protected by politicians such that they evade the rule of law. Can’t touch this, like Hammer Man. They are Members of Parliament, sitting Ministers and individuals with powerful connections to the throne. These bogus housing schemes are created to secure votes and to stay in power as revealed by the Uchena Commission of Enquriy on Stateland. Also quantified in the 2019 report, are 300 cases of stateland theft. The public is cheated twofold. Firstly they’re swindled of their hard-earned money as they pay for their allocated lots, and secondly they live under the threat of eviction losing their “acquired” land rights if they do not vote for the person or the party that has afforded them the pieces of land. Electioneering!
Politics feeds into corruption. Government officials in key ministries oil this evil machine with disappearing documents and skipping mandatory processes. The opposition party is not spared since it has control over the majority of local authorities across the country. As one analyst quoted by The Africa Report outlines that as the ruling party commonly parcelled out farms, the opposition parcelled out urban land. In these local structures lie wolves of corruption who forge paperwork, receipts, masterplans, subdivision and development permits to sanitize their own barrage of illegal land distribution mechanics. In Budiriro, one resident whose house had been demolished exclaimed that they had running water which was inspected and connected by the city officials. It gets weirder. In another instance where an informal kitchen was flattened in Mbare, the lady owner produced receipts as evidence that she has been paying monthly bills to the city. If that is the case, has the city been collecting rentals on illegal developments? Why? A cue to ponder.
It is worth noting that the 2005 demolition was theorised to be a retaliation on urban voters who had elected the opposition into power that same year as described by the Human Rights Watch. Now, imagine a situation where blame is shifted onto one party for allowing illegal structures to mushroom, and the other party swoops in to save the day by offering substitute solutions such as regularisation and grace periods. This could be the case with current demolitions, a curtain-raising politricking show leading to the 2023 elections.
Course Correction
It painfully obvious that these demolitions should have been done in a more humane manner with respect to the Human Settlement Policy and right to shelter. A procedural approach which involves ample grace period, relocations and allocating safe temporary accommodation could have been followed avoiding unnecessary heavy handedness by government. The current strategy of demolitions further trumps efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It is also imperative that the public execute due diligence before investing into housing developments by consulting relevant authorities and professionals. Public awareness is a worthy vaccine. Other solutions will be the exclusive focus of the next article.
The Scars Are Ugly
The creation of dysfunctional settlements and business places resulting in their demolition disproportionately affects the poorest of the poor. They eternally lack access to land, and when they do, there is little to no security of tenure rights and of business property.
On the surface we are witnessing massive loss of shelter, loss of livelihoods, exposure to disease, injuries and deaths. Most displaced households have nowhere else to go and have setup temporary accommodation right where their former homes have been scorched. This trickles down to food insecurity, unsafe sanitation, and lack of access to clean water. A potential health disaster lurks in the shadows.
Deeper scars have however been left on the psychological being of the affected – moreover, their young children who have observed such atrocities with their own blameless eyes. Their education has been impacted, meaning their future lies in jeopardy with no assurance of breaking the cycle of poverty and suffering.
For all of Zimbabwe watching, safe access to land becomes an illusion when those in power abuse office and let the cancer run wild. People simply stop trusting the system and believing in the existence of rule of law. Once bitten twice shy, the old adage goes. The permanent result is stifled investment into land ownership thus trapping people in poverty as previously outlined in Episode 01. This is most of us.
To anyone hoping to own land, the most trusted pillar of life now appears to be a house of cards; it can blow away with the wind. Tenurelessness is a pandemic and solving it requires large calibre munitions. The next epistle will be a side notes feature on how this can be best prevented.
State Of Tenure 