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Govt reneges on housing promise
Nkululeko Sibanda, The Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
October 05, 2006

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=1678

MONDAY was World Habitat Day, an occasion so designated by the United Nations to highlight the need to build adequate shelter for communities.

This year’s event, coming more than a year after the government’s disastrous Operation Murambatsvina and as signs of the new rainy season became more ominous for the victims of last year’s widely condemned ‘clean-up’ exercise, further exposed how inadequate the government’s celebrated Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle has been in addressing a growing housing shortage.

It also exposed the extent of government hypocrisy.

A visit to Hatcliffe, where a pre-dawn military-style raid left hundreds of families homeless last year as Murambatsvina gathered momentum, revealed that contrary to public posturing by government officials that makeshift plastic tents offered by humanitarian agencies were not acceptable (with President Robert Mugabe famously declaring "we are not plastic people"), ‘model’ houses at a location toured by Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo, were actually made of this material.

While Chombo was extolling the virtues of Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle, poor residents were casting worried glances at the grey skies, pregnant with the ominous signs of rain.

For Ambuya Rice, a 55-year-old woman squatting at a farm in Hatcliffe, the onset of the rainy season spells doom and gloom for her and the entire Hatcliffe community who have lived in substandard shelter for more than 10 years.

She tells a tale of a long life lived outside formal housing, having previously lived at Ndabaningi Sithole’s Churu farm, which was the target of a police crackdown in the 1990s.

"We were evicted from Sithole’s Churu farm after Sithole clashed with government. Since we were staying there and fending for ourselves, we were kicked out of the farm on suspicion that we sympathised with Sithole.

"From there, the District Development Fund moved us to this place where we were allocated stands to construct houses. The costs of constructing the houses at the time were so high that some of us failed to build reasonable houses and resorted to shacks and asbestos shelters," she said.

When the authorities descended on the settlement with devastating effect on the advent of Murambatsvina during the winter of 2005, Rice and others were once again on the receiving end when their shacks were razed to the ground while they were rounded up and dumped at Caledonia farm, where a transit camp had been established.

After some were repatriated to their rural homes, those who remained were moved back to Hatcliffe, with government providing little more than roof sheeting per family.

"We were instructed to acquire our own building materials and roofing materials. These items were so expensive that only a handful managed to acquire the materials to put up decent houses. That is why you continue to see these shacks throughout this place," Rice added.

Donor agencies, especially the World Food Programme, Christian Care and the Roman Catholic Church have assisted these people a lot as they have continuously provided material assistance to the underprivileged people in Hatcliffe.

The donor agencies have provided wheat, mealie-meal, and cooking oil for the families.

"At times, some trucks come here looking for people to work at various farms dotted around this place. The most unfortunate part of this is that some of the people here are so old they can no longer work for themselves and they then have to depend on these donations by the agencies," said Mavis, a single mother.

Margaret Chitauro, one of the oldest denizens of the Hatcliffe squatter camp, told The Financial Gazette that government had promised to construct proper houses for them after Operation Murambatsvina, but was yet to make good its undertaking.

"Staying here is not nice at all. We are only here because we are suffering. The government, and specifically Chombo, (the Minister of Local Government) promised that after Operation Murambatsvina, we were going to have proper houses and not these shells," she said.

Promises of better accommodation from the government crumbled recently when the dwellers were told they would have to build their own accommodation.

"We hoped government would abide by its promise to build houses for us under Operation Garikai since it is the one that destroyed people’s houses during Operation Murambatsvina.

"But we were surprised when we were told that we would have to draw up plans and get them approved by council. We wondered what had happened to the promises of houses by the minister. However, we have come to realise that we will have to stay in these squalid conditions for a lifetime since we cannot build our own houses due to high construction costs," Margaret added.

Apart from the rains, a bigger threat, that of improper sanitary facilities, looms large.

Toilets are often dug just one metre deep, while there is no piped water.

According to United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan’s special envoy, Anna Tibaijuka’s report after assessing the effects of Operation Murambatsvina, close to 700 000 people needed accommodation after the demolition exercise, a figure that government vehemently disputed, saying it was meant to put Zimbabwe under the spotlight and exert unwarranted pressure from the international community.

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