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Clean-up a travesty of justice? The rich get away with illegal structures as the poor are left to brave the cold
Hama Saburi, The Financial Gazette
June 02, 2005

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/fingaz/2005/June/June2/8623.shtml

BUSINESS tycoon Sam Levy's lavish Borrowdale office block built in the late 1990s without council approval still stands today but the same cannot be said of illegal structures in Harare's densely-populated residential areas - razed to the ground in the past two weeks.

Levy, who in October 2000 escaped with a $200 fine for importing 50 motorcycles inscribed "Police" without authority, had the knack for putting up illegal structures at his plush Sam Levy Village under the nose of partisan municipal authorities.

Council officials, who moved in to destroy hundreds of thousands of illegal structures two weeks ago in an operation that has quickly spread to other towns and cities, had issued all kinds of threats against the multi-billionaire only to have a change of heart in the end.

Roger Boka - the late business magnate whose United Merchant Bank collapsed in 1998 under the weight of a liquidity crisis - had also benefited from the excessive and highly suspicious inertia on the part of the city fathers now astonishingly displaying unrelenting vigour in bringing down illegal structures belonging to poor citizens.

Boka, a fierce proponent of black economic empowerment, was treated with kid gloves after he constructed cotton auction floors despite a council prohibition order. The floors, which were yet to be completed at the time of Boka's death in February 1999, remain a white elephant epitomising the authorities' double standards.

This could be an obvious case of who you are and whom you know. Analysts this week said the travesty of justice shown by the authorities in enforcing municipal by-laws, raised more questions than answers.

Are the authorities genuinely enforcing the by-laws or they have now embarked on a war of attrition against urbanites for overwhelmingly voting for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the March 31 elections?

Why is the long arm of the law hesitant in dealing with the rich and famous whose illegal structures were regularised yet they were obvious candidates for demolition?

Yet others find it difficult to believe the same city fathers, who had indirectly given the nod to the illegal settlements by turning a blind eye on informal traders for so many years, could today make such a dramatic U-turn in broad daylight.

At least 20 000 people have been arrested and goods worth billions of dollars confiscated or destroyed in a major crackdown against informal traders and homeless people that began in Harare and has now widened to cover other cities and towns.

This has created a human catastrophe that many people fear could be the hot bed for a popular uprising against the ZANU PF government, which lost its grip on urban centres in 2000.

The government has come out in defence of the campaign, saying it is meant to rid cities of filth and crime, particularly the thriving illegal black market that has worked against central bank-driven economic revival strategies.

While the government has promised to find alternative accommodation for those displaced in the exercise, unconfirmed reports suggest the clean-up campaign, endorsed by President Robert Mugabe at an extraordinary session of the ruling ZANU PF's policy-making organ - the central committee - was laced with ulterior motives.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, accused the Zimbabwean leader of unleashing the police to punish voters for backing the main opposition party. The MDC, which has disputed ZANU PF's victory in the March elections, claims President Mugabe wanted to provoke spontaneous and violent reactions by residents so he could find a pretext to declare a state of emergency and rule by decree.

"Over half of the economy activity in Zimbabwe is now conducted in the informal sector, which consists of nearly three million individual enterprises and supports the great majority of the people. With barely eight percent of adult Zimbabweans in formal sector employment, the wholesale destruction of these small family businesses is a betrayal of the principles of the liberation struggle. The use of armed police to carry out this exercise and to intimidate those affected reveals the true character of this regime," read a statement issued by the MDC after its national council meeting.

In a terse response to the MDC, Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru, who many believe espouses the government position, said something that could be revealing of the government's viewpoint.

". . . Ask yourself what connects the murky backside of Rezende Street and wilting Harvest House (the headquarters of the MDC) and self confident and secure Zimbabwe House? The one was, until last week, a setting for seemingly innocent vendors and touts dashing for deals and shouting after numerous bargains gone awry. That was the innocent face of it all. The other was a pot on the boil, a setting for arcane political schemes underwritten by blood," wrote Manheru.

The clean-up campaign might also be aimed at reducing the enormous strain on public infrastructure, which had started to give in to the population explosion in urban centres that had resulted in numerous burst water pipes and the malfunctioning of the sewerage works, among other things.

The condemnation by the MDC and civil society organisations comes as human rights lawyers and the opposition legislators prepare to mount a class action seeking compensation from the state.

ZANU PF sympathiser and social commentator Jonathan Kadzura said those affected by the crackdown should seek opportunities in rural areas where the government has repaired infrastructure damaged during the war of liberation as well as introducing electricity.

The economic activity in the rural areas and farmlands, he argued, will have a huge capacity to drive urban economic activity

"It is always difficult to change old habits. It might prove a little stormy to convince the unemployed urbanites to go back to the rural areas and take advantage of the new dispensation on land and particularly in light of the fact that this new policy is what our detractors are fighting. It might also be in the short-term to persuade our young entrepreneurs to consider setting up micro-industries in these up and coming urbanising centres, but in the long term, it is true that these areas are the future hubs of our economy," said Kadzura.

Kadzura said municipal by-laws needed to be enforced, while the haphazard construction of illegal structures had put an enormous strain on existing infrastructure such as the sewerage, water and health systems.

He said: "Health in city centres has been compromised by the construction and quiet sanctioning of these dwellings. Security of property and humans has also been exposed to the illegal exploits inherent with disorder, overcrowding and idleness, all of which militate against capital."

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