eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
Government is planning to launch Command Housing programme soon as part of efforts to provide decent, orderly and affordable accommodation to the public.
Under the programme, old houses will be upgraded to meet local authorities’ requirements and standards. Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister July Moyo told the Parliament last Wednesday that the programme needed to be taken seriously as this would help to provide proper accommodation to those without.
“I want to assure the nation that we are putting all efforts in order to start this command housing programme that the President has tasked us to do and it is part of our 100 days which we have now already submitted in terms of plans.
“I cannot give a timetable as to exactly when we will be alleviating all these. But, let us not also forget that every city, Kadoma included, Bulawayo, Masvingo and Mutare, where you have had all these old accommodation, some of which we call ‘misana yenzou’, we need to pay attention to that,” said Minister Moyo.
“We are talking to all the local authorities as we have done, we have said to every local authority, as you come up with your programmes for the new housing projects that you want to embark on, do not forget about all these areas where dilapidation has taken place. So, we are paying attention to it and we will be announcing our timetabling of implementation once it is launched.”
The authorities are looking at all the housing projects that have taken place in the country where they feel are not equipped with water, sewerage and other infrastructure that goes with proper service delivery.
To that extent, the ministry has called for a meeting of all the local authorities that are affected.
A meeting was held on Thursday and Friday in Kadoma last week to map out an investment programme to upgrade Garikai and other old houses.
Minister Moyo said: “We are not just looking at Garikai houses but all the housing that has taken place and are unplanned throughout the country.
“In Bulawayo, in addition to the Garikai built places, there are 15 others where there is no infrastructure that will require a better housing project if it was properly planned. All development that occurs within a local Government area can be developed by private sector, Government or the councils themselves.
“The responsibility for continuing to run those housing projects first have to lay with the local authority for services and if the infrastructure has been put by the developer, yes the local authority still takes over the running of those local authorities.”
Government wants to examine some areas where councils have allowed developers to build without proper inspection. Government will give the legal backing to the local authorities that run the areas that have been built without proper planning under the Rural District Councils Act or the Urban Councils Act or the Urban Development Corporation Act.
The housing projects are yet another initiative in line with the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) plan to ease housing shortages. Under Zim-Asset, Government has set a target to build more than 300 000 houses by 2018 to ease the housing backlog which currently stands at about 1,25 million.
Models under the scheme include semi-detached apartments, flats as well as apartments with alternative building technologies.
