In respect to the Local Government Board who have in the past been responsible for such appointments, the Council informed the Board of their decisions and sent the details of all applicants and the short list with the results of the interviews to the Board – not for approval, as this s now a responsibility of the elected Councils, but out of courtesy and to seek endorsement that the appointment had been made in a professional and non partisan manner.
The MDC does not know what Mr. Mushore’s political affiliations are and is not interested to know. In terms of the Constitution he is required to be non Partisan.
These flagrant violations of the fundamental principles of the new Constitution are extremely serious. The attempt by the Minister to get an amendment to the Urban Councils Act and the Rural Districts Councils Act, which will restore his right to interfere in elected Councils affairs in the same way as before, is not an effort to “align” these Acts with the new Constitution. Instead they constitute a deliberate effort to subvert the new Constitution.
In regard to the drive to settle hundreds of thousands of people in urban areas using politically aligned Housing Cooperatives, this is reaching new heights. In Harare, on 8 commercial farms acquired during the fast track farm reform programme, have been used to settle over 1000 Housing Cooperatives, all of which, are directly linked to Zanu PF. The nearly 200 000 families settled in these farms have paid for their stands and up to $20 a square metre has been charged.
All settled families are required to join Zanu PF and are recorded on registers that are used to monitor attendance at Party meetings. All are carefully monitored and any links to MDC are immediately rewarded with expulsion and even the destruction of any shelters build on the stands. All such areas are then incorporated, illegally, into neighboring urban Wards and Constituencies and special polling stations set up during elections. Any polling station delivering a MDC candidate is then targeted for destruction of housing in the subsequent period. It was in this way that areas of informal housing were targeted by the Ministry in both Ruwa and Chitungwiza Urban Councils in 2013.
All urban areas are being subjected to this effort to influence elections – in Masvingo Zanu PF has occupied a 6000 hectare property to the south of the City and is settling 13000 stands that are being “sold” to occupants at a total cost of $52 million. None of the families so settled has any tenure rights, the only record of payments being a receipt issued by hand by the financial beneficiary who has no responsibility to provide any services.
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