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Masunda, Chiyangwa clash over clinic

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Harare mayor Muchadeyi Masunda is on a collision course with property tycoon Phillip Chiyangwa after he described his multi-million dollar private clinic under construction in Alexandra Park residential area as illegal and vowed to demolish it.

Harare mayor Muchadeyi Masunda is on a collision course with property tycoon Phillip Chiyangwa after he described his multi-million dollar private clinic under construction in Alexandra Park residential area as illegal and vowed to demolish it.

Report by Wonai Masvingise Masunda said the construction of the clinic had not been sanctioned by the local authority as Chiyangwa had not applied for change of land use for the piece of land where he was building the two-storey building.

  The mayor said Chiyangwa does not have a permit to carry out the proposed project in a residential area.

  But Chiyangwa vowed to proceed with the multi-million-dollar project claiming he already had a permit from the local authority.

  “You can’t go and source information from councillors. You must have an enforcement order. Corrupt councillors give you these stories. My sister, do not phone me about these people, tell them to go to hell, they are Satan’s children,” Chiyangwa said.

  “Does a councillor know where I started my life? I have got permits. Their problem is that all of them are corrupt. This is my money my sister, it’s a problem when you don’t have money, they should make their own money.”

  He added: “I am filthy rich my sister, if I put you in a room with my money you will be buried in it. You make us lose money with these false stories that you write.”

  Masunda however shot back saying: “As far as I am concerned, the area is not zoned for that kind of activity. If Phillip Chiyangwa wants to build a clinic, hospital or whatever in that area, he would have to apply for a change of use for that property.

  “A notice has to be served to people in and around that area to give them a chance to say whether they want to have the building in their vicinity or not. I am not aware of that application having gone through. What we are anxious to avoid is to have to demolish structures and have organisations like Amnesty International saying we have committed human rights abuses or are causing another Murambatsvina.”

  He added: “As a designated town planning authority, we want our stakeholders, Phillip Chiyangwa included, to abide by the rules of the game. If at some point he wants to convert his offices into a clinic, then he must go through the necessary channels. What we don’t want is for some people to behave with contemptuous impunity and we find ourselves having to demolish those structures.

  “I have established with certainty that there was no permit granted and there was no application made for change of use. As it is we have sent our foot soldiers today (yesterday) to go and see what is happening on the ground and if we do find that indeed a hospital is being built there the next step will then be to demolish that structure.”

  Council environmental management committee chairperson Stewart Mutizwa also said: “There’s nothing that we gave him that gives him power to build a hospital there. He only has an office in Alexandra Park and he only asked council for the land in front of the office so that he could have more parking space.”

  Three years ago, Chiyangwa clashed with the local authority after he was again barred from developing another piece of land in Borrowdale.