via Chitungwiza residents call for arrest of officials in illegal land deals | SW Radio Africa by Tererai Karimakwenda December 12, 2013
The residents of Chitungwiza are calling for investigations and the arrests of all councillors, mayors and former local government officials that have been linked to illegal land deals, following a recent audit that has revealed widespread corruption and the allocation of illegal stands in the high-density suburb.
The calls follow a report presented to the Local Government Ministry this week, which showed that more than 23,000 illegal stands, valued at over $20 million, were sold to residents of Chitungwiza, making a fortune for several individuals who run illegal housing cooperatives.
Ironically, the report was presented Wednesday to the official alleged to be one of the key beneficiaries of illegal land deals around Harare, the Local Government Minister himself, Ignatius Chombo.
According to the Newsday newspaper, the scale of the corruption was described as “astounding” by the chairman of the audit team, Ronald Chimowa, as he presented the report. He said at least 23,074 illegal stands valued at $20,423,900 were created in Chitungwiza, with over 8,000 of them situated “in unsuitable areas”
Chombo last week suspended ward 25 councillor Frederick Mabamba, who features in the report as the key official who sold most of the illegal stands as chairman of the United We Stand Multipurpose Co-operative. He was also a losing ZANU PF mayoral candidate in elections earlier this year.
But the suspension has been dismissed as “window dressing” by Chitungwiza residents, who insist Chombo knew about the illegal deals and Mabamba and others must face criminal charges for defrauding unsuspecting residents.
Admire Zaya, director of the Chitungwiza Progressive Residents Association (Chipra), told SW Radio Africa that Mabamba owns over 8,000 stands, with many built on sites that were meant for clinics, schools and other development projects.
“By suspending Mabamba, Chombo is trying to sweep the whole affair under the carpet and to protect him from further prosecution by the authorities. He is supposed to engage the Anti-corruption Commission and the Prosecutor General but in this way he also protects himself,” Zaya explained.
Newsday said their own investigations last month revealed that Mabamba is the owner of “six schools, hundreds of residential stands, two shopping complexes and numerous other properties in a town where the majority of residents are desperately looking for land to build their own homes”.
According to Zaya, Chombo is one of the officials alleged to have allowed these illegal land deals to take place and he knew the scale of the corruption and illegal locations of many of the stands.
“As Chitungwiza residents we are calling for the arrest of all councillors, mayors, former councillors and other officials who facilitated the illegal land deals and benefited from them,” Zaya said.
Meanwhile thousands of families stand to lose their homes if government carries out evictions of those whose properties are situated in locations deemed to be “unsuitable areas”. As always in Zimbabwe, it is the poor who suffer the most.
COMMENTS
ZANU.PF is only trying to hurt those against their minority rule. If u look back carefully. Murambatsvina has ever been an act to chase us from urban to rural. Where unreported tortured occurs in the eyes of villagers, hence forcing them to vote against their choices.
Shame!
The revolutionary party at it again. Revolutionary means a complete change so this party changes all things that were well planned and designed by the Smith regime.
How can 20000 stands be sold without someone say the CIO, police or the useless army, anti-corruption trying to figure the sence of building houses in a soccer pitch next to a river filled with sewage. Arrest all these damn councillors, Chombo, Muchechetere, Kasukuwere, Chihuri, Mtasa, Mugabe…we all know that these people are the thieves and we just leave them to walk scott free and mess our lives???
People of Chitungwiza must know that Chitungwiza Head office is operating from a School at the expense of our Children. We must stand up and remove these corrupt Mayor, Town Clerk and the entire councilors and their stuff from the school to pave way for our children. They allocated stands where their Head office is supposed to be built near Chitungwiza Town Centre. We should do something. Also investigation should be made over Salaries and benefits of Chitungwiza to brass.
We are blessed in Mat. because we have an educated public who are not easy to cheat and are less greedy to encourage corruption.
@ mixed race
so are the people from the other provinces not educated?
If you have basic education and common sense- Why buy a stand underneath ZESA power lines?
Bogus war vets behind this
the entire Zanu Pf guys must just go,non of them iz better than the other and the biggest culprit of them all is Mugabe,stupid deals are done under his nose and what does he do,he goes on to compensate with long stupid speeches to pple on graveyards rattling abt corruption instead of taking considerate action like firing those idiots fom govmnt…..JESUS CHRISTk