in the high-density suburb of St Mary’s.

This was revealed during a meeting of a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Small to Medium Enterprises last Thursday.
Chitungwiza Municipality officials did not attend the meeting despite being invited.
Committee chairperson, Luveve legislator Mr Reggie Moyo (MDC-T), said they would invoke the necessary measures to force the municipality to comply.

“We are a friendly committee but we also have teeth when it comes to people who don’t attend our meetings when we invite them. We won’t tolerate any other excuse from them,” he said.
Appearing before the committee, representatives from the SMEs said Chitungwiza Municipality had repossessed the stands unilaterally while the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development, Mrs Evelyn Ndlovu, blasted city councils for thwarting development.

SMEs St Mary’s chairperson, Mr Collen Mukanyangi, said their co-operative had 99-year leases, which they were given in 1997.

“We were allocated the stands in 1997 and we have 99-year leases but in 2005 the municipality repossessed the stands without giving explanations and they started allocating them to other people. Some of the beneficiaries are councillors who have since developed the stands and are leasing them. The Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises intervened but the municipality has not been listening. It is only recently that we were allocated 13 stands out of the 22 due to us. We have been insisting that they should give us back the remainder,” Mr Mukanyangi said.

In her presentation, Mrs Ndlovu said city councils were making it impossible for the vendors to operate.
“City councils in general are unable to facilitate development in the areas they preside over. They make it impossible for people to earn a living by denying SMEs to operate.

“We have engaged Chitungwiza Municipality since 2005, telling them to give back the stands to the SMEs but they continued to abuse their power by taking the land.
“They are now allocating small stands where the SMEs’ plans can’t fit, which makes it difficult for them to operate. They should instead support these vendors by constructing structures so that they can collect revenue,” she said.

Mrs Ndlovu said her ministry had a head count of vendors in Harare’s Central Business District and found that there were more than 6 000 of them. Zvimba East MP, Cde Patrick Zhuwao (Zanu-PF) said what Chitungwiza Municipality did was a criminal offence because they had sold property which belonged to other people.
Mrs Ndlovu said she would consult legal experts in her ministry to find out if the affected SMEs could sue.

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