The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
A data cleaning exercise within the Bulawayo City Council’s Town Planning Department has exposed a number of irregularities in the city’s leased property database.
The irregularities that have emerged include the fact that most of council-owned shops were occupied by undocumented personnel after the original lessees either died, sublet or abandoned the properties.
According to the latest report, council leased out various shops to tenants on different lease tenures ranging from 10 to 40 years and above.
“The data cleaning exercise and site inspections revealed that most of these council shops were now occupied by undocumented occupants.
“The obtaining phenomenon was motivated by the fact that previous tenants were deceased.
“This created room for close relatives to take occupancy or sublet the shops, spouses to take over without authorisation by council, or alternatively totally unknown occupants found in occupation,” reads the report.
To help bring normalcy in the situation and as BCC works on re-tendering some of the properties that have been red flagged in the process, the local authority has since resolved to cancel the long-term leases and instead implement a month-on-month lease renewal process.
“In view of the foregoing, in an attempt to return to normalcy, council had resolved that where the sitting tenant had passed on without leaving a spouse, the occupier of council-leased premise shall be given a month on month lease pending the re-tendering of the said premise.
“Where the council premise was repossessed but for some reason was not reallocated and there happened to be an occupier, the same shall be given a month on month lease pending re-tendering of the premise,” reads the council report.
The local authority also resolved that once the current occupier of the council premise had been regularised, they shall be entitled to respond to the tender for the lease of the same.
“Once the current occupier of the council premise had been regularised, he/she shall sign an agreement of lease with council on a month to month basis and be responsible for the payment of all relevant council charges,” reads the report.
The department further revealed that there were 47 such properties although some were being occupied by spouses of the original tenants who have since died.
“In case where there are surviving spouses, they be given an option to take over the leases for a renewable five-year lease subject to satisfactory performance at the pleasure of council. The current occupiers of the shops to clear all outstanding arrears prior to signing a lease and further all leased properties shall not exceed 12 months without being tendered out,” reads the report.
The Town Planning Department was formed as a standalone department in 2021, from the Engineering Services Department with the city saying they were working towards decentralising and decongesting the Central Business District to create new business centres and markets.
Since its inception, the town planning department has been engaging in a data cleaning exercise which included noting down some of its leased properties asset register, checking on their status and site visits.
