War over service stations

KUDAKWASHE CHIBVURI

A war has erupted at town house in Harare over proliferation of service stations mainly in residential areas in the capital city with Mayor Jacob Mafume blasting officials for “recklessness” and endangering lives.

This follows the sprouting of service stations across the city including in residential areas that has led to anger from residents who feel corruption by officials was at the centre of dozens of service stations being licensed.

Mafume said council has since halted the licensing of service stations and will soon engage the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) on the matter.

“We have ordered that they stop giving any permits for a service station until a meeting is held with EMA, ZERA and council so that we understand what is going on. We are going to write a letter to stakeholders through our parent ministry for them to come on board and discuss the process involved,” he told Business Times.

Councillors also raised the matter in a full council meeting where they questioned the logic behind the proliferation of the service stations.

Despite a chorus of disapproval from councillors and Mafume’s latest position, acting Director of Town Planning Samuel Nyabeza recently told Business Times that there was nothing sinister about proliferation of the service stations adding all was above board and necessary for the local authority to make money.

“We consult experts and neighbours and decisions are made with full council endorsement,” he said.

“The vehicle population in the city is increasing daily. We now have around 1.5 million vehicles in Harare compared to less than a million five years ago. The proliferation of service stations is simply a matter of supply meeting demand,” he added.

“A decision is made which is endorsed by full council then a payment is granted with several conditions. But before the service -station is built, before building plans for self-stations are submitted, we will require that the applicant goes to EMA to apply for an environmental impact assessment approval.”

“Before they grant the certificate, they invite stakeholders around that area to a meeting to hear their views. They do thorough interrogations about the safety, about the issues pertaining to underground water, safety of the neighbours, safety of the public before they grant the EIA certificate. Then they will now be able to start submission of building plans.”

Investigations however, show all this process was not followed adequately.

Suspicions have also been raised over why council gave out approvals for such developments raising eyebrows that corruption was at play.

The matter has also been raised by the President Emmerson Mnangagwa appointed Commission of Inquiry to deal with suspicions of financial mismanagement within the city.

Precious Shumba, Director of the Harare Residents Trust, told Business Times that rampant corruption within the council has facilitated the rise of service stations in the city compounded by a lack of oversight from the Environmental Management Agency.

“There is a lot of corruption in the local authorities and there is also a lack of monitoring by EMA,” Shumba said.

“We expect the Regional Town and Country Planning Act to be implemented fully. However, most service stations are being established in residential areas, wetlands, and hazardous locations near intersections. This poses serious challenges in emergencies such as fire outbreaks or unforeseen leaks that could pollute the environment.”

“So this is caused by massive corruption involving councillors and technocrats within local authorities. The weakness we have also noted is the issue of environmental impact assessments that are undertaken by the owners of the service stations and they always come out with a positive report which disregards environmental protection,” he added.

Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) Director Reuben Akili said the service stations pose a greater risk to the residents and the environment adding that an investigation to establish how they are being regulated should be undertaken.

He said there was no due diligence being done from council level to ZERA, EMA and other involved institutions leading to the “mess.”

Akili said the process was marred in secrecy.

“The deals are mired in secrecy and it is across the country and we have to dig deeper on why we have many service stations in the last two or so years.