Desperate home seekers building houses on Chitungwiza cemetery

Edgar Gweshe

Chitungwiza—Desperate home seekers in Chitungwiza have invaded a cemetery in the Nyatsime area where they have been allocated housing stands by land barons with strong political links.

The area, off Chitungwiza Road from Harare after the Manyame bridge, was designated as a cemetery and contains some old graves, with a relatively large area still un-utilised.

It was revealed last June that the city’s municipality had run out of residential space and intended to expand into the adjacent Manyame rural district.

Wycliff Mutambanengwe, a master planner, told Chitungwiza residents last month that, in addition, the city had exhausted land needed for recreation and industrial development.

The city has been battling with extensive land invasions led by barons who include traditional leaders, councillors and individuals with strong links to the ruling Zanu PF.

“The population boom in the town brought by development led to a shortage of land in Chitungwiza,” said Mutambanengwe when he met with residents, adding that a master plan being worked on was targeting six nearby farms for expansion.

But land barons have moved in quickly to illegally parcel out land to home seekers in Nyatsime, including in the designated graveyard, NewsHub has established.

According to Alice Kuvheya, the Chitungwiza Residents Trust (CHITREST) director, the invasions scaled up sharply in the run-up to the 2023 general elections, slowed down after the polls but resumed from early this year.

“We are yet to establish the actual number of people already settled on the cemetery, but they run into several hundreds. We are talking of a large space of land dedicated to the cemetery,” Kuvheya told NewsHub.

She added that her organisation was also battling to pin down the land barons involved but said CHITREST would soon carry out an investigation to identify them.

Kuvheya expressed shock at the proliferation of illegally built houses on the Nyatsime cemetery, adding that some of the houses had been built on top of existing graves.

“There is an area reserved for a cemetery but there were land allocations in that area which were presided over by ruling party officials before the 2023 campaign period. The land allocations are ongoing and some of the graves have been graded and people are building on top of the graves.

“Most of the beneficiaries are from the ruling party and council seems powerless to stop these land allocations. They (council) have been quiet, despite our numerous complaints over the land allocations at the cemetery,” said Kuvheya.

A source privy to the developments said council officials have been rendered powerless tin the wake of the illegal cemetery settlements as they have reportedly been receiving threats from unnamed political activists from the ruling party.

The source added that besides ruling party officials, some senior council employees are involved in the illegal parceling of land at the Nyatsime gravesite but could not name them.

“We have gathered that some of the people who were allocated the housing stands actually paid some money to be included on the housing waiting list but this money was not receipted at council. The involvement of some council officials raises suspicion that they are working in cahoots with some political players,” said the source.

Former Zanu PF councillor and a member of the Zanoremba Housing Cooperative, Lameck Chisango, who is alleged to be one of the land barons operating in the area expressed ignorance over the matter.

“I am not privy to that,” he said before hanging up.

Chitungwiza Ward 12 councillor, Nyarai Chisango, initially expressed ignorance over the matter saying she would be in a position to give a comment after confirming with council officials.

Later, she was not responding to calls.

The Chitungwiza municipality spokesperson, Tafadzwa Kachiko, confirmed the gravesite invasions, saying council was currently seized with the matter but declined to give further information.

“Illegal settlers encroached on the cemetery, leaving it squashed. Our homework is to come up with Plan B because if we don’t do that, the cemetery will soon be decommissioned.

“We have thwarted several attempts to invade the remaining cemetery space. A month ago, we went and demolished structures. We advise home seekers not to settle at the cemetery and condemn any other invasions,” Kachiko told NewsHub.