‘Kwekwe free of land barons’

Source: ‘Kwekwe free of land barons’ | The Herald

Minister Moyo

Midlands Bureau
Kwekwe City is the only urban council in the Midlands province that has not been affected by illegal settlements and land barons according to a Local Government and Public Works report seen by The Herald.

The report was compiled by a committee that was set up by Local Government and Public Works Minister, July Moyo, two weeks ago after he toured Gweru City after some of its suburbs were hit by floods due to illegal settlements.

The minister also ordered all urban and rural district councils affected by floods in the province, save for Kwekwe City to submit their floods report.

The reports also followed an emergency meeting for town clerks and RDC chief executives called by the Midlands Provincial Minister, Larry Mavima to discuss the causes of flooding in their respective areas.

The acting town Clerk, Dr Lucia Mkhandla said was the city was yet to be affected by illegal settlements.

She said the city was also one of the few in the province that have not yet been affected by floods as there were no illegal settlements.

“We were not asked to write a report by the ministry because we do not have any illegal settlements in Kwekwe,” she said.

“We do not have any problem of land barons in the city.

“We did not experience any problems in terms of floods in Kwekwe. This is largely because we have made it a tradition that every year before the onset of rains, we clear and maintain our storm drains even in high density suburbs so we do not have blockages.”

The report which is set to be tabled before Minister Moyo noted some irregularities in some suburbs.

In Gweru for instance,there was noted in another suburb where according to the report over 400 more houses were fraudulently put on an official layout plan.