Zimbabwe’s housing crisis is being compounded by alleged political interference in housing cooperatives, opaque land allocation processes and weak enforcement of planning laws, with powerful individuals accused of exploiting desperate home seekers for financial gain.
Human rights lawyer Doug Coltart says the country’s housing sector has become vulnerable to manipulation by politically connected individuals and land barons, while failures by public institutions to enforce existing laws have allowed questionable land deals and developments in environmentally sensitive areas to persist.
Speaking during CITE’s This Morning on Asakhe programme, which discussed Zimbabwe’s housing crisis and the growing threat of land scams, Coltart said ordinary citizens were often left with insecure tenure despite paying for residential stands through housing cooperatives.
He said the cooperative system, which is supposed to help people access residential land, had increasingly become vulnerable to political interference and abuse.
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“For a start, the setup that is accessible for many ordinary Zimbabweans is such that they are given very insecure tenure over the land,” he said.
“The arrangement that currently persists in many areas where there are housing cooperatives and that people have to pay into a housing cooperative is a system that has been rampantly abused, particularly by politicians.”
Coltart said the absence of transparency in how land is allocated has created opportunities for multiple allocations, leaving home seekers exposed to disputes over the same pieces of land.
He explained that some cooperatives could be allocated land that had already been given to another group, while others could lose land following changes in political relationships.
“Sometimes there is more than one housing cooperative that has been allocated the same piece of land, and due to the total lack of transparency, often people end up having to double allocation of the same large swath of land to two different housing cooperatives,” he said.
“Or one housing cooperative falls out of political favour and is taken away from them and given to another.”
He argued that improving access to residential land required reforms that would allow people to purchase stands directly from local authorities, rather than relying on housing cooperatives.
“The simplest way of doing that would be, number one, for people to be able to access, to affordably access stands directly from the city rather than having to go through housing cooperatives,” he said.
He also called for a transparent and publicly accessible system of land allocation to prevent double allocations and enable citizens to establish whether the stands they are buying have been legitimately allocated.
However, Coltart maintained that legislative reforms alone would not resolve the crisis, arguing that the bigger problem was the failure to enforce existing laws where powerful interests were involved.
“I think that really gets to the nub of the issue that the primary issue is enforcement,” he said.
He added: “We have a situation whereby there is little political will to properly enforce the law, even as we have it, because there are vested interests by powerful people who are making a lot of money off the poor through exploiting them and scamming them of land.”
Coltart also raised concerns over the development of residential properties in wetlands, particularly in Harare, warning that such activities could have consequences beyond the immediate housing disputes.
He said wetlands were important sources of water for the city and that their invasion and development threatened resources on which residents depend.
“We also have a huge issue of the invasion of areas that ought not to be areas for housing development, in Harare in particular wetlands, which play a vital role for the entire city, providing a water source for the city that all citizens depend on,” he said.
“ And yet many of these land barons are invading these wetlands and illegally building houses there.”
Citing developments at the Monavale wetland Ramsar site, Coltart alleged that Members of Parliament were involved in the invasion of part of the protected area.
He said the case illustrated how different public institutions could become implicated in land-use decisions, pointing to a change-of-use application involving the City of Harare and the Ministry of Local Government.
Coltart said the application had been published by the Minister of Local Government and involved land that he alleged was being invaded by Members of Parliament.
He also raised questions about the role of the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), which is responsible for environmental protection.
“There hasn’t yet been an EIA granted for that Mona Vale stand yet as far as we know,” he said.
He contrasted this with another development in Borrowdale West, where he alleged EMA had issued an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate for construction within a wetland.
Coltart said the way change-of-use applications were presented made it difficult for members of the public to identify developments taking place in protected areas.
“The change of use application doesn’t state that this is within a gazetted wetland. It simply gives the stand number. Most people don’t know places by their stand numbers,” he said.
He argued that information on land allocations and gazetted wetlands should be made easily accessible to the public, adding that a map previously available on EMA’s website showing the locations of wetlands had been taken down.
According to Coltart, the lack of accessible information makes it difficult for residents to scrutinise developments and identify potentially unlawful activities before investing their money.
He further raised concerns about private developers operating in the sector, including Chinese-owned companies involved in developments within Harare’s wetlands.
He was careful to distinguish the issue from the nationality of investors, arguing that the central concern was the consequences of developments undertaken for quick financial returns.
“But the relevance of that is that it’s not an issue about their nationality. But it’s a question of if people are coming from outside of the country to make a quick profit and then get out,” he said.
He warned that people who purchase properties in such developments could face the risk of demolition or flooding, while the destruction of wetlands could undermine the city’s water sources.
Coltart also questioned why individuals previously charged in connection with illegal land activities continued to be treated by local authorities and other public institutions as legitimate developers.
“Some of those, you find situations where they are land barons, who in the past have been charged with being involved in illegal land activities,” he said.
“But the city of Harare and other municipalities and government entities are still continuing to deal with those individuals as if they are legitimate land developers.”
He added: “So we literally have criminals infiltrating into the whole land sector. And then we are surprised when we are faced with the crisis that we are faced with.”
Contributing to the discussion, Rushinga Constituency Member of Parliament Tendai Nyabani blamed local authorities for failing to provide properly planned housing and ensure transparent land allocation.
Nyabani said councils had moved away from a system in which they developed housing and allocated properties to people on waiting lists, leaving citizens to navigate an increasingly complicated process involving residential stands, leases and levies.
“Those allocations or those leases and levies, they will be terms from councils. So you never know which is the proper papers, which are from the council or from land barons,” he said.
He argued that councils should take responsibility for servicing land before allocating it to residents and should publicly advertise beneficiaries.
Nyabani also questioned the alleged allocation of multiple residential stands to individuals while ordinary home seekers remained on waiting lists.
“Last year, just a year, one person was able to benefit one person in towns. But now, one person is getting 110. How are the people going to benefit if you provide 110 to one person?” he said.
He said the allocation system should recognise different income levels and ensure that low-income earners were not disadvantaged in accessing residential land.
The legislator further accused councils of failing to act promptly against illegal land occupations, questioning why authorities allowed some developments to continue for years before declaring them unlawful.
He said councils had planning and security structures that should prevent illegal land allocations and settlements from taking place.
Nyabani maintained that local authorities had a responsibility to regulate land development through their planning systems and by-laws.
The discussion raised questions about the accountability of public institutions and the effectiveness of existing land administration systems, particularly as ordinary Zimbabweans continue to seek affordable and secure access to housing.
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