Brian Rungano Temba
Harare Metropolitan Provincial Development Coordinator Mr Tafadzwa Muguti says demolitions being done on all car sales, vendor stalls and other structures on road servitudes are not of his own making.
He said this responding to a number of media outlets have been interpreting the ongoing blitz as “Muguti demolitions.”
Muguti made this remarks on his guest appearance on Zimpapers Television Network yesterday.
This comes after informal traders have been crying foul over these demolition blitz, saying the action has negatively affected their livelihoods.
Some claiming to have been issued leases so that they could develop on these same road servitudes.
Mr Muguti has confirmed that these are some of the victims of fraudulent selling of land by corrupt officials in Harare City Council.
These roadside structures not only pose a danger to drivers but also impede the ongoing Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP) of widening the roads.
“There has been a lot of misconception on my role as PDC by a lot of mischievous individuals. I am one of the 10 PDCs employed by the ministry of Local Government and Public works. The Ministry is empowered by Devolution and the Constitution as the sole ministry with the mandate to have oversight on Local Authorities,” said Mr Muguti.
“I am therefore, within the structure of the province, the senior Civil Servant responsible for the co-ordination of all government operations within the province. I also am empowered to have oversight on behalf of the Minister of Local Government and Public Works on what the local authorities are doing,” added Mr Muguti.
Mr Muguti also said that speculation on social media and in other media spectrums that this blitz was a ‘PDC Operation’ or ‘Muguti Demolitions’ are false and misleading.
He explained that the government has an Enhanced Cabinet Committee on Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Management which is chaired by Vice President Rtrd Gen CDGN Chiwenga. This committee was evoked into action when President Mnangagwa announced the state of the roads in Harare Metropolitan Province as a state of national Disaster.
“Whenever the President declares any sector as a national disaster, the cabinet receives submissions from the enhanced and technical committees that will result in the National Treasury pumping money out for the execution of these submissions.
“As we speak we all see the roads being resurfaced, some of them being completely expanded. Cabinet gave the directive on decongestion of our roads as ERRP continues and an ad hock committee under Cabinet was tasked with decongesting the roads of Harare,” he added.
Mr Muguti said it is from this ad hoc Committee that recommendations on how to decongest roads came. Some of which point at single lane roads like Lomagundi that have already had the servitude to be expanded into double lane roads.
Mr Muguti added that planning for roads in Harare had maintained the road servitudes from 1980 in case of expansions like the ones being enacted today.
When asked why the demolitions were so abrupt and did not happen after the legal issues were settled on the land leases Mr Muguti said that Vendors and all operators on these road servitudes have been given warnings since September last year.
“Since my appointment I have been on radio, newspapers and television advocating for a stop to invading land and for those who are on land that they do not have papers for to remove their belongings and do the right paperwork. We have given them enough time.
As Harare Province we got to a point where we this was getting out of hand.
We have the paperwork to prove that since 2018 people have been getting notices to remove their things and others decided to turn it into politics while other ignored.
We also have others who have quickly been regularizing their papers fraudulently,” he said.
Mr Muguti said that a road servitude is part of the road and any business which was being done there is supposed to be temporary meaning there should be no permanent structure, legally.
Recent Comments