The City of Harare has only managed to allocate 56 housing stands since January this year, while the waiting list is above 11 000 active members.
In his first quarter report on Wednesday, Harare mayor Jacob Mafume described the situation as “sad”. He said:
We managed to allocate only 56 stands since January and this is sad as the housing waiting list is standing at 11 282 active members as of December 31, 2022.
The city is finalising the human settlement policy which is coming as a review of the current housing policy.
We will then unveil the new housing models that the city will implement going forward particularly as we seek to address the outstanding issues in the pay schemes that are operational in Harare.
Going forward the city will not allocate unserviced land because this has created a lot of problems and has promoted the mushrooming of illegal settlements.
The ever-rising housing waiting list has resulted in land barons taking advantage of desperate home-seekers by illegally percelling out State land.
It has also resulted in the sprouting of illegal settlements lacking basic amenities such as piped water, refuse collection and sewerage reticulation.
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