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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
SOME home seekers in Bulawayo have approached Government to intervene in housing stands allocation disputes between them and the local authority.

This follows Bulawayo City Council’s recent directive to people who purchased stands during the dollarisation era through payments to pay top ups in foreign currency for the municipality to service their stands.

The local authority said the transition from multi-currency to Zim dollar resulted in it failing to complete servicing stands that were bought by residents under the pre-sale scheme. Residents made residential stands pre-payments between 2016 and 2019 and the local authority failed to deliver.

At least 2 500 residents who had bought stands in suburbs such as Pumula South, Woodville, Tshabalala Extension and Magwegwe West were affected. This has seen the residents writing a letter to Local Government and Public Works Minister July Moyo requesting him to intervene in the matter.

Chronicle is in possession of the letter which was written by Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) dated 22 August to Minister Moyo. BPRA copied Bulawayo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Judith Ncube and Permanent Secretary for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Mr Paul Nyoni.

Minister Moyo could not be reached for comment yesterday but Minister Ncube confirmed receipt of the residents’ letter that was copied to her.

“Yes, the letter has been submitted to my office. However, it was submitted last week when I was not in the office so I did not interact with the person who brought it,” said Minister Ncube.

In the letter BPRA co-ordinator Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu said BCC failed to meet contractual obligations hence their decision to engage Government.

“BPRA would like to raise to your attention the housing disputes that have risen between BCC and housing stands beneficiaries. BPRA notes with concern BCC’s continued failure to honour its contractual obligations to offer fully serviced stands to housing stands beneficiaries,” said Mr Ndlovu.

“Residents purchased residential stands in Tshabalala Extension, Pumula South, Woodville and Magwegwe West from BCC dating back from 2016. In turn, BCC sub-contracted private developers to service these areas which has yielded no results to date as residential stands in these areas remain un-serviced and as a result the beneficiaries cannot develop their land.”

He said after failing to service the stands, it was surprising that the local authority was demanding top up fees of up to US$6 000 for it to service the stands.

“Residents have been left in shock as this means they have to pay for the same stands twice, which breaches all the initial contractual provisions between the local authority and the housing stand beneficiaries,” he said.

“BPRA requests your esteemed office to intervene as engagements organised by both BPRA and housing stand beneficiaries themselves with BCC have not yielded any results as BCC has highlighted that it will not service stands until beneficiaries pay the top up amounts.”

Mr Ndlovu said the local authority has employed the divide and rule mechanism to convince some of the supposed beneficiaries to pay top up fees, disadvantaging others. Bulawayo Town Clerk Mr Christopher Dube said residents are free to approach Government and even courts over the matter as the council has explained to them its challenges.

“This is a predicament that we are in which came when the RTGS dollar was introduced. The money lost value. We failed to complete (servicing the stands) and we are saying there is no way we can get the money to complete your stands. Those who want to get their stands, have to pay something but those who are no longer interested, we can sell their rights,” said Mr Dube.

He said according the country’s laws legacy debts were placed at US$1: ZW$1 rate meaning if residents had paid US$10 000 the amount translated to ZW$10 000. Government had to reintroduce the multi-currency following the outbreak of Covid-19 to contain the inflationary environment.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube said the multi-currency system will remain in force during the duration of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) blueprint which remains in force until 2025.

Mr Dube said council has also engaged residents in adopting the new decision.

“We had some works and we requested that they make additional payments and if they are not interested, we will repossess the stand. This initiative is not coming from us as council. We have engaged residents and explained to them that there is no other way we could generate money to complete the project. We all lost during that transition. We lost and they also lost,” he said.

“We are owing about 2  500 stands and if we get the majority supporting that kind of arrangement that is what we are going to go for. We work with the majority in decision making. We know it will be painful to begin with but they will see an improvement. If you had deposited $10 000 it is there, it is no longer US dollar.” – @nqotshili.