MDC Renewal blasts demolitions

THE MDC Renewal Team says the current demolitions of homes in Chitungwiza and Epworth are clear acts of cruelty by government.

In a statement the team’s national secretary for social welfare Lucia Matibenga said her team was shocked by the act which resembles another evil Murambatsvina.

“The MDC Renewal Team expresses its dismay at the callous and heartless treatment of citizens by the current government, which has gone on yet another campaign of demolishing people’s homes leaving them without shelter. Hundreds of men, women and children have been left homeless by the government’s demolition of people’s homes in Chitungwiza and Epworth, which are reminiscent of the Murambatsvina   campaign of 2005 that saw the destruction of tens of thousands of homes by the same ZANU (PF) government, leaving over 700 000 people homeless and without access to livelihoods,” She said.

Matibenga said not only are the demolitions illegal but that the same government allocated those stands to people ahead of the July 2013 elections as a campaign tool but are now turning around accusing the occupants of being illegally settled.  

The trade unionist said it is now clear that the multiple housing cooperatives spearheaded by ZANU (PF) ahead of the elections were a vote-buying and rigging gimmick that had nothing to do with fulfilling the government’s social obligation of providing housing to the people. 

The renewal team says the demolitions are a blatant violation of Section 28 of the country’s Constitution, which guarantees the right to shelter for all Zimbabweans and are also ironic to the ZANU PF’s promise to 250 000 houses under the Zimbabwe’s Agenda for Sustainable Socio-economic Transformation (ZimAsset).

Matibenga says her team calls for the unconditional stoppage to the illegal demolitions, provision of alternative shelter to people who are settled illegally before demolition of their shelters, urgent mechanisms to regularize these settlements, stop to government interference with the operations of local authorities.

The team has also called for an independent inquiry and audit of illegal land deals in Zimbabwe’s local authorities and a review of the legal framework that governs the operation of housing cooperatives in Zimbabwe.