IN yesterday’s edition, we ran a story titled Chitungwiza runs out of land, where it was revealed that the local authority had run out of land for residential, recreational and industrial development and is targeting surrounding land in Manyame Rural District Council for expansion.
Developments taking place in Dema and Seke show that people are eager to get land to construct houses.
The situation is not peculiar to Chitungwiza.
Several major cities and towns are faced with similar situations and are looking for land for expansion.
The 2022 national population census showed that the capital Harare had 2 427 231 people, nearly 16% of Zimbabwe’s population.
The growth of Harare’s peri-urban areas such as Domboshava, Goromonzi and Beatrice is proof that there is a lackadaisical approach to town planning by authorities.
That all the 92 local authorities are now scrambling to beat the June 30 deadline imposed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to come up with master plans shows that something is wrong somewhere.
Why wait for the President to make a decree?
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It shows that our town planners and responsible ministries are sleeping on the job.
Chitungwiza authorities must have realised that the population was ballooning as way back as 2010.
It must have started negotiating with Manyame RDC for land to expand long back, but because those at the helm are always bickering and throwing spanners in the works, they lost the opportunity.
It is the same with Harare, Gweru, Bulawayo and some towns.
The politicisation of all government programmes has made everything worse. Successive ministers at the Local Government portfolio have always meddled in the affairs of councils, especially those under the control of the opposition in an effort to stifle development.
On the one hand, certain political parties cripple the functions of local authorities while on the other, tenderpreneurs wait with bated breath to get their hands on anything they can lay their hands on to the extent of parcelling out council and government land.
Local authorities must not be lethargic in the discharge of their duties.
Town planners must always be up to the task and carry out their mandates without fear.
In that vein, those with political muscle should not hound town planners who will be carrying out their duties.
We urge government to stop interfering in the running of the affairs of local authorities, lest it shoot itself in the foot in its endeavour to achieve upper-middle-income status by 2030 and the so-called Vision 2030.
The political elite have, over the years, weakened systems such as physical planning, which has allowed land barons to flourish in most cities and towns.
This tragedy could have been avoided.
