SUSPENDED Chitungwiza Ward 25 councillor Fraderick Mabamba (Zanu PF) yesterday said the residential land that he sold to home seekers in the dormitory town was suitable for housing purposes and was therefore exempted from the planned demolitions.
PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI
The land was sold through his United We Stand Housing Co-operative.
Mabamba said he was not “a mad person” who would do unprocedural things.
He challenged Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo to raze to the ground any structure on residential stands belonging to his co-operative should they be located on unsuitable land.
“If they see a stand in a wetland, or below a power line, we have no objection if they proceed with the demolitions,” he said.
“I am not a mad person who will do unprocedural things.”
Chombo in February gave residents whose residential stands were located in wetlands, under electrical power lines and above sewer pipes 21 days to pull down their structures and vacate the area.
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But, Mabamba said perhaps other land barons in the town would be affected by the order because an assessment done by his housing co-operative established that none of the residential stands they sold fitted into that category.
“We are law-abiding citizens and whatever the State says, we should abide by it. Fortunately, we didn’t find any structure that is in water or under a power line,” he said.
“We have completed our (assessment) exercise and all the stands under our co-operative are not affected. I think it applies to other barons.”
Mabamba accused his political rivals, including some Chitungwiza council officials, of seeking to destroy him because of the “popularity” he had among ordinary people after bagging 3 080 votes, which he claimed were the highest countrywide.
“I could have created enemies and they want to soil my name. There are enemies in council because after I had been nominated (ahead of elections), the town clerk (George Makunde) wrote a letter in which he lied about me,” he said.
In the letter dated June 28 2013 addressed to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Makunde objected to the nomination of Mabamba — together with two other contestants — claiming that they did not qualify to run because they were former council employees “who were dismissed from employment on offences to do with dishonesty, corruption and absenteeism”.
Makunde claimed that Mabamba took council’s land and sold it to home seekers who proceeded to construct houses in an unprocedural manner. Chitungwiza magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa is today expected to deliver judgment in the case in which the town’s residents are seeking court intervention against attempts to raze the structures.
The authorities had planned to demolish the houses on February 7 this year, but were stopped after magistrate Nomsa Sabarauta, then based in Chitungwiza, gave a provisional order (Case Number 106/14) in favour of an application filed by the Chitungwiza Residents’ Trust against the demolitions.
