BENEFICIARIES of government’s Hlalani Kuhle housing scheme in Cowdray Park have accused the Bulawayo Home-Seekers’ Consortium Trust (BHSCT) of failing to account for contributions made towards the servicing of their stands.
Report by Pamela Mhlanga Own correspondent
BHSCT is a private housing developer spearheading servicing of the area allocated to victims of the government’s 2005 urban clean-up campaign known as Operation Murambatsvina.
Disgruntled residents said they contributed $150 each in 2006 for the sewer system and had been paying $5 monthly to the consortium, but no development had taken place.
Council has since taken over the project from BHSCT.
“On October 22 2012, the Bulawayo City Council, which took over the project in March this year, notified us that we had to pay monthly installments for five years for servicing of our area to begin,” said one of the beneficiaries.
“This came as a big surprise to us all.
“As residents, however, we noted that our contributions to date through BHSCT, part of which have also been deposited into the city council’s bank account with BancABC, have not been accounted for.”
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But BHSCT project co-ordinator Mkhululi Nyathi yesterday dismissed the allegations saying they were meant to tarnish the organisation’s image.
“I am definitely aware of such allegations and I personally know those individuals who are making the claims,” he said.
“Those same individuals have been holding meetings of their own trying to destabilise BHSCT and the development in the area.”
He said BHSCT was transparent in its operations and council had carried out a full audit of the job they did in Cowdray Park.
“We worked with some of these people, but because of their intentions to assume other powerful positions, they decided to drift away and cause confusion. Their agenda was to pull the consortium down,” Nyathi said.
“If we all want development, we have to sit down and talk about problems and find solutions to them in a civilised manner.”
