Back to Index

Outcry over hikes in rates for city flats dwellers
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
August 23, 2007

About 700 residents of Harare living in City-owned flats are outraged at the sudden rise in their monthly rentals, a situation that has driven some of the affected tenants to the offices of the Rent Board at Makombe Building for intervention.

They were neither consulted nor informed of the imminent increases until they started receiving their monthly bills this week. This issue comes at the back of planned meetings between a Mr Sibanda, a director at the Rent Board and representatives of the various City-owned flats, who are mostly municipal employees.

One of the affected tenants, Martin Prosper Dzvanga who resides at Glen Norah A' Flats, a retired employee of the City of Harare told CHRA that his August bill was beyond his apprehension and he would seek legal remedy until justice prevails.

In monthly bills from the City of Harare shown to CHRA for the month of June, July and August, Mr Dzvanga has to pay $4 991 552 in August, with $2 216 622 for 30-day debt and the current debt being $2 774 900. He is unable to explain how his debt rose so drastically from the July figure of $2 629 322. As far as CHRA is concerned the residents objected to both the 2007 City of Harare and the Supplementary Budget.

How the rates increased from a modest $44 983 in June to about $4, 5 million boggles the mind as nothing has been officially communicated either to the residents of Harare or through the media from Town House.

Most surprisingly, most residents in those flats are City employees but still they were not informed of the increases until the Municipality's Salaries Department simply deducted amounts in excess of $3 million from some of the City of Harare employees.

According to insiders at Town House, this has created acrimony among City employees who feel that they have been short-changed by the illegal commission that authorised the increases and subsequent salary deductions.

The insiders said they received bills indicating that they had arrears for the month of July and their salaries were deducted without their consent. Some junior employees at Trafalgar Court were severely affected as they found themselves taking home nothing in salary, except an overdraft on their monthly pay. There are about 120 housing units at Trafalgar.

At the same time this move has also affected tenants living in Nenyere, Annex, Matapi, Mashawasha, Glen Norah B' and Charles Bricks Flats in Mbare.

CHRA has since started documenting the issues of the affected tenants with a view of taking up a legal challenge against the City of Harare on behalf of the tenants.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP