MASHONALAND East Provincial Affairs minister Joel Biggie Matiza last Thursday threatened to expel 20 village headmen from Seke implicated in illegal allocation of over 5 000 stands.
Jairos Saunyama Own Correspondent
The matter came up after the Manyame Rural District Council wrote to Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo exposing the scam.
“If we find out that a village head is allocating land to bogus land seekers, his or her time is up. We need order. We cannot lose land to bogus developers like that,” Matiza said.
In a report to Chombo, the council said: “Some villagers and village heads had taken it upon themselves to illegally sell and allocate communal land.
“We are happy to note that the Ministry of Local Government intervened and set up an audit team to look into the issue. We are implementing the audit recommendations. We identified a total of 5 186 illegal settlers in the 20 villages cited in the audit report and served them with penalty letters. Of these 709, are settled on suitable sites and they need to be relocated once the re-planning process if finalised.”
In a bid to stop the illegal allocations, council has demolished some of the illegal structures and issued eviction orders.
“Eleven illegal structures were demolished in Wards 1, 3 and 8 in 2014.
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“The affected people, however took council to court but their cases are yet to be determined. Going forward demolitions will only be carried out in cases where there are court orders to that effect,” council added.
