POLITICIANS and land barons have been thriving by allocating land illegally to desperate home-seekers in Caledonia and 100 000 residents now face the reality of living dangerously at the settlement.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Located on 2 300 hectares of farmland, Caledonia sprouted as squatters and low-income earners settled there from 2002 coming from areas such as Churu and Porta farms.
The settlement is overcrowded, dusty and has no clear demarcations between houses. There are confusing road systems, and although schoolchildren in uniforms are seen coming from school, it is said they learn at unregistered institutions.
An investigative visit on Tuesday to Caledonia by the Irene Zindi-led Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government revealed that although the Urban Development Corporation (Udcorp) was brought in by government to clean up the mess left by unscrupulous land barons and politicians, it will take years to sanitise the area if the government does not set aside funds for the development of infrastructure in the area.
“I lived in West Africa for 25 years before independence and we used to say the housing confusion there will never happen in Zimbabwe,” Udcorp chairman, Thomas Zondo Sakala said.
“We should learn lessons from Caledonia and revisit the housing model we have been using, where we give land to individuals or cooperatives that do not have the capacity to service land.”
Sakala said Caledonia needs infrastructure such as water, sewers and electricity urgently, but he said it was not going to be easy as long as politicians and land barons remained in the area, calling the shots.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
“It is not going to be easy because some of the players, who contributed to this chaos are still on the ground. Udcorp staff have been threatened in the past and it is still a delicate situation,” he said.
Of major concern is the health situation for Caledonia residents, where each household has a Blair toilet and a well that are not far from each other, exposing them to the danger of contamination of their drinking water and exposure to cholera.
Christine Zondo told NewsDay that most residents had built a Blair toilet with a toilet seat and cover to ensure the toilets were always covered.
“The toilets are clean. We erected a separate bathroom and we did not put concrete because we want the water to be absorbed into the ground so that it does not easily fill up,” she said.
Chairperson of the Caledonia management committee, Percy Toriro said Caledonia was so overcrowded, (with 100 000 people) that it was nearly twice the population of Marondera (60 000).
“When the first settlers from squatter camps came to Caledonia it was fairly well-planned, and other phases of Caledonia developed after co-operatives were formed and people would be given land. More phases were done by unqualified town planners, and by 2012 the system of allocation of stands was so haphazard that anyone who wanted to make money registered a co-operative and got land,” he said.
There was so much disorder in parcelling out of land by the barons that the unqualified planners did not reserve land for roads, clinics, schools, recreational centres and shops.
“These people never gave consideration to a lot of things that by 2013 people were paying money to enrich land barons without any consideration of servicing the place. There was financial mismanagement, fraud, double allocations and cases of people being kicked out for failing to pay.”
Toriro said when Udcorp came in they had to do replanning of Caledonia, resulting in a plan being submitted for 29 000 stands, all surveyed and pegged. The stand sizes ranged from 200 to 1 000 square metres.
Another nightmare at Caledonia is that, for the such a population, there are only 20 schools, all unregistered with unqualified teachers.
“They are unregistered and teachers there are not paid or supervised by government. At one school, 1 800 students are mixed up from early childhood education (ECD) to secondary school, and were taught by plumbers.”
Toriro said there have been cases of drowning because there were no bridges, but eight bridges were erected.
“We noticed that people might die in thousands because toilets were erected next to wells and the first thing we did was to drill 25 boreholes for drinking water. We also did road connections to other suburbs like Ruwa, Damofalls and Tafara.”
Caledonia residents are supposed to self-finance infrastructure projects in their area by contributing $50 per month to ensure $2 million is collected per month from the 29 000 stands, but from October last year a meagre $3 million was collected out of a potential of $14,5 million.
“There is continued delinquency on the part of land barons, who continue to cause chaos on the ground. Police are supposed to arrest them but they hide under the Co-operative Societies Act. As we speak, more than $200 000 has been withdrawn by individuals, who manage co-operatives.
“They say we cannot touch them and lack of collaboration between the Local Government Ministry and the Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry has worsened the problem,” Toriro said.
Another disaster at Caledonia is that there is no cemetery.
Although the new layout has provision for different services, Caledonia now has a police post, district offices and a makeshift clinic constructed by Medecins Sans Frontiers, as well as a company, Tarcon, which has been engaged for road construction.
Information given to MPs was that Tarcon was awarded the tender by the State Procurement Board.
In some parts of Caledonia, the committee was shown houses built at a place that is reserved for a school, and people there said they were swindled of their money by land barons.
At the police post, MPs were told that most cases handled there were assault cases due to fights over double allocation of land, and gender-based violence.
The land barons were said to be in control of funds by co-operatives despite the intervention of Udcorp to Caledonia.
“It is state land, which had been given to cooperatives, and when government came in the co-operatives were not removed and so the co-operatives are still the developers and they refuse to surrender the money to Udcorp. Unless a decision is taken to remove the cooperatives there will be complete crisis,” Sakala said.
At the shopping centre, there are 334 stands all controlled by one land baron identified as Chikanga, who charges rent for flea markets at $30 per month and tuckshops at $100 per month.
The land barons were said to be causing havoc by invading more land and doing double allocations.
State land officer in Local Government, Everest Nyamadzawo said they were failing to remove land barons because it was a lengthy process to get an eviction order.
But MPs felt nothing much was being done to deal with the land barons, whom they said should be identified, removed and arrested.
Zindi said there is need to properly regularise Udcorp, which was set up to do audits of urban and Local Authorities.
“The committee will compile a report and make recommendations on illegal settlements,” she said.
