HARARE- More than 144 sites in Harare have been invaded by land barons resulting in the city going to the courts for recourse, parliament heard this Monday.
This comes as Harare has seen an influx of buildings being built on wetlands and other places, including roadsides.
Admond Nhekairo, the housing director for Harare, told parliament’s thematic committee on climate change that the land barons, do not stop there, but use “lawfare” to frustrate the city’s efforts to curb rampant lawlessness.
He said this has resulted in illegal developments proceeding while court processes drag on, sometimes for years.
Nhekairo told MPs: “There is now a tendency by some of these invaders, what I can call lawfare, where they quickly rush to the courts with dirty hands and apply for, say, spoliation orders, where they seek to regain what they feel they are being repossessed in terms of that piece of land. And we will be in courts for two years.
“Meanwhile, developments will be taking shape. When council finally wins its case, we now take restorative action to ensure that whatever has been done wrongly is rectified.
“This is the challenge that we are having, but when I spoke of 144 sites invaded, I was basically talking of the preponderance by land barons to take occupation of municipal land illegally.”
At the same meeting, the Environmental Management Agency said at least 152 applications for the development of wetlands from developers and proposed subdivisions by the City of Harare have been lodged for regularisation.
“The agency has so far received a total of 152 applications for proposed developments in wetlands, it’s quite a huge number and these applications includes Environmental Impact Assessment applications by the developers and proposed subdivisions or change of land use applications by the city and the department of spatial planning to us. It is a positive that at least now we are communicating in terms of what needs to be done, ” said Christopher Mushava, the acting director general.
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