The Sunday News
OVER the years, the number of people seeking land to build houses in towns and cities has been increasing. Estimates show that the national housing waiting list stands at more than 1,25 million. This is just an estimate and in most cases it is compiled from those who would have registered with respective local authorities expressing interest in owning a stand or a house.
However, the figure might be more than that as thousands more are obviously in need of the accommodation but may not have registered with the city councils for many reasons. One of the reasons why some people do not even bother to register is the fear to continuously pay to the local authorities every year just to keep their name on the list even if the local authority rarely provides the stands.
The other reason is that even at those rare moments when councils provide stands, they are priced beyond the means of many people including those who have executive jobs. The best way of estimating the number of people in need of accommodation might not necessarily be through tallying those piles of names on the housing waiting lists. A simple survey on how many people are lodging in different cities and towns might provide a more accurate number and picture on the size of people who are in need of land to build their own houses. In most cases, people rent properties because they do not have their own.
Even if we are to use the housing waiting list, the numbers alone show the magnitude of the problem the country is facing.
A problem which is affecting more than a million people in a country of 13 million is too big to sweep aside and pretend as if it does not exist.
Local authorities and Government in general must start working on ways to avail more land to people especially in urban centres at affordable rates to allow citizens to build houses. After all shelter is one of those key rights which the constitution clearly states every citizen must have access to.
To just show how desperate many people are, there has been a number of shoddy deals going on the properties market as some unscrupulous dealers are exploiting this desperation to swindle people of their money by dangling non-existing properties.
In Harare for example, some families were made to buy land from land barons who were selling land that did not belong to them. These families either individually or through housing cooperatives were made to pay huge sums of money only to be told later that they were to be evicted.
In fact over the last few months, some of the families had their properties destroyed by the city council as their houses were deemed illegal structures. This is painful considering the money people are made to pay to just buy stands and let alone to build the structures.Some of the land barons were arrested but the bottom line is that a lot of families lost their money and are now homeless because of this.
To further show how this has become a big problem, even lawyers, who by the rule of the land and the nature of profession must help people in such cases have been caught on the wrong side of the law. People engage lawyers when buying properties with the hope that these lawyers can do all the paper work after a thorough background check to avoid problems in the future.
However, instead of doing the proper work, some of the lawyers are busy fleecing people money. Reports show that lawyers are conniving to fake papers such as title deeds to sell non-existing properties. In some cases they even misuse clients’ money meant to buy properties and end up using that money for their own personal needs.
Estate Agents, who by law are in the business of managing properties have also been caught on the wrong side dipping their fingers in people’s wallets promising them properties that are not even there. Cases of double sales have been too many. Cases of bogus estate agents who close offices the minute they score big on desperate people seeking accommodation have become too common. The property market has become a haven with thieves pouncing on desperate people.
The bottom line is that all these problems are just a manifestation of a bigger one which is the lack of affordable stands offered by local authorities. Over the past years, local authorities have argued that they do not have money to develop new areas for residential purposes. Often they have roped in private players who buy land, service it and then sell to the public.
While this was a noble idea, it must now be interrogated why, if these private players had the money to develop as many areas as they could, the waiting list is ballooning when our population has relatively remained around 13 million for many years.
Most of these stands that are in the hands of private players are priced at levels beyond the reach of many. So if that is the case, is the move to just rope in private players worth it when at the end it does not serve the people who are supposed to benefit? That is why Government must push for the idea of city councils taking a leading role in the provision of stands to the people. There is no money yes, but parceling out land to greedy people has not solved the problem in any way.
City councils must lobby Government and use their resources to avail land at affordable rates to people. Worryingly though even some of the prices some city councils are now charging for the few stands they sometimes provide are now at par with those in the hands of private developers.
As a country it shows we need to really look at our costing structures and compare it with the reality on the ground. Some city councils are now selling the smallest stands in high-density (200 square metres) for a minimum of $5 000.
Zimbabwe’s majority of workers who are the civil servants, as most in the private sector employees have been made jobless because of the economic challenges, earn an average of $500 per month. Factoring all other costs, probably the highest amount such a person can afford to save towards a stand is $100 per month. It means it will take the person 50 months (more than four years) to save enough to pay for a stand.
This is ridiculous and Government as the employer of the majority of these workers must know better. How does Government expect its workers to buy the stands let alone raise more than triple that amount to build a simple high density house when they are confronted with such costs? That is why the responsible ministry and city councils must sit down and come up with a people-friendly way of providing decent accommodation to people. A problem affecting millions of people definitely needs the most urgent attention and solution.
