Religious organisations occupying land at will because they belong to Churches for ED

HON. BAJILA: I wish to thank the Minister for his response. The challenge of religious organisations occupying pieces of land at will is becoming bigger, affecting numerous issues around community development. But I really appreciate the Minister’s response which looks at our land tenure and distribution systems. What I would like to find out is if there is a time line where we can look forward to the end of this moratorium. We have tried to engage these institutions but it gets difficult to get to the end because most of them end up saying they are occupying land at will because they belong to churches for Economic Development.

HON. GARWE: Mr. Speaker Sir, I cannot give a specific time line but we are hoping that by end of May, we will have done everything that needs to be done in terms of ensuring that the land tenure management system is put in place. There are many other areas that we need to look at as Zimbabweans and one of them is the minimum service delivery standards by our local authorities, which were none existent and we are putting in place. We look at the 

minimum service delivery standards by local authorities together with the land management systems. We want to come up with a holistic programme that will show where we are and where we ought to go in terms of land management system and minimum service delivery 

systems by our rural and urban local authorities. 

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