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Engineer George Mlilo

Freedom Mupanedemo, Midlands Bureau
The Midlands is one of the few, if not the only province, without land barons who fleece home seekers of their money, a senior Government official has said.

Addressing a private land developers’ meeting in Gweru recently, the secretary for Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Engineer George Mlilo said Harare topped the list with the largest number of land barons who only advertise a piece of land before they start fleecing desperate home- seekers.

“Midlands is clean, Harare is chaotic, it is the most chaotic. This is the challenge with private land developers now. There are many land barons who just advertise and start fleecing people of their hard-earned money. This is problem we are having in the country at the moment especially in Harare.

‘‘I am glad Gweru has none of those. Our partnership is smart. It’s only in the Midlands province where we have not received reports of land barons going around fleecing desperate home seekers. Land developers in the Midlands province work hand in hand with our ministry to try and reduce the housing backlog and I think this should be emulated,” he said.

Engineer Mlilo said Government had partnered nine private developers in the Midlands in its bid to reduce the housing backlog.

He applauded the private land developers for working hand in hand with his ministry in developing land in an effort to reduce the national housing backlog which stands at 1,25 million.

Eng Mlilo said it was also only in the Midlands province where land developers were remitting something to Government.

“Midlands has nine land developers who are working hand in hand with Government and they have been making an effort to remit something to Government from what they charge their clients.

Private developers should know that land they sell to people belongs to Government and for as long as they haven’t paid for the value of that land, they won’t get title deeds,” he said.