Warren Park residents demands Zacc investigation into Harare land sales




Harare mayor councillor Herbert Gomba
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WARREN Park residents have dragged Harare City Council officials to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) over graft allegations in the allocation of stands in the high density suburb.

This comes after council “illegally” sold residential stands on an area with underground electricity cables against the regulations of the country’s power utility, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa).

In an interview with NewZimbabwe.com, Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) director, Lorraine Musariri described the allocation of stands as corrupt.

Residents of the suburb and CHRA were Tuesday expected to submit separate letters to the anti graft body requesting its intervention and investigation of the matter.

According to Musariri, it was only after their outcry that Harare City Council ordered that construction on the site be stopped with immediate effect.

“We (CHRA) helped the affected residents to draft their own letter which was submitted to Zacc.

“CHRA has also written its own letter in support of residents, demanding that an investigation be carried out,” said Musariri.

“Harare City Council has responded by halting any further developments on the stands as the space was not meant for residential construction.

“We want to expose the officials who approved allocation of stands at a place that was not meant for residential settlement because that was unprocedural and corrupt.”

Musariri added that the construction of houses violated Zesa regulations.

“No construction is supposed to take place there because there are Zesa power cables there and there is a transformer there as well.

“Zesa regulations do not allow construction over power cables and transformers. If construction takes place, the houses will be built on top of underground power cables and near a 11Kv transformer,” she said.

“Council stopped the construction, but this move was only taken after CHRA raised a red flag.”

President Emmerson Mnangagwa in early 2018 set up a commission of inquiry into the sale of State Land which unearthed cases of fraud in the sale of residential stands in all provinces in the country. – Newzimbabwe