Floods expose Gweru City Council

VINCENT MHENE IN GWERU

The recent flooding that hit the city of Gweru has exposed possible underhand dealings and collusion between city council officials and private land developers.

The flash floods last week left at least 25 families affected.

They were, however, evacuated to safe shelters identified by the city council.

The most affected residential areas include Tinshel, Montrose, and Clairemont, which are new housing projects done by private developers.

It is understood that some city council officials in collusion with land developers were selling residential stands in these suburbs without fully servicing them, while some are located in wetlands.

Gweru Mayor Josiah Makombe hinted at a possible investigation into the affairs of its engineering department which approves housing projects and plans.

He said disciplinary action would be taken against officials involved in corruption in the approval of housing developments.

“As a city, we will always deal with those involved in dealings outside the law and once we discover that someone was doing unethical things, we will obviously do some disciplinary measures against those people,” he told Business Times.

Makombe added that the city is grappling with a problem of houses that were built without approvals from the local authority.

He said: “Even if one is a Gweru City council official it doesn’t give them the right to approve things that are wrong and that must stop.

 After this, we (city council) need to engage with these private land developers where the floods hit hard.

We already have challenges in these areas collecting refuse because there are no roads and we can’t have such a situation in our city.”

The city council has been rocked by corruption scandals involving its officials, which prompted the council to invite the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), recently.

A 2018 forensic land audit conducted by the then Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing for Gweru City Council revealed that during the prior years the city made financial losses through pilferage by council officials amounting to $43,082.93.

The audit highlighted that city council officials were involved in “shoddy deals concerning sewerage, water reticulation systems, and building plan approvals”.

Gweru residents expressed dismay at the failure by the city council to deal with alleged shady dealings within the engineering department.

Gweru Residents and Ratepayers Association executive director, Cornelia Selipiwe, said a shake-up was needed to expose those involved in corruption in the approval of housing stands.

“When people buy stands from land developers it’s because they want to have their own houses as quickly as possible and the local authority should supervise the work of the land developers.

When you buy a stand from the land developer you expect everything to be in order but the challenge we are having is we are on our own at the mercy of the property developers.”

He added that Gweru City Council needed to sell residential stands directly to home seekers and reduce using private players.

Makombe is on record saying his administration has not sold any housing stand since assuming office in August 2018.

Residential stands have only been sold by private property developers.

Meanwhile, a rural and urban planner Valentine Chiturumani said the prevalence of land barons and poor town planning by local authorities were the major cause to the problem of flash flooding in urban areas.

“People are building on wetlands, planners are failing to allocate citizens stands in proper areas and also the issue of land barons allocating stands,” he said.

He added: “The new residential areas don’t have proper drainage system that is why floods are common, for example, they don’t put culverts and underground drainage channels.”

Chiturumani said town planners should enforce professional standards to reduce the problem of settlements arising in wetlands and other unsuitable environments. fffffffffff