BUREAUCRACY around the property ownership, acquisition and registration is stopping people from acquiring title deeds threatening owners’ security, a new report has shown.
The latest Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) 2023 report stated that the proportion of households which own dwellings without title deeds increased to 13% from 8% in 2020.
“There is a need for collaborations between ratepayers, councils and deeds office to address bottlenecks to accelerate the acquisition of title deeds by homeowners, as this has implications on credit worthiness and access to capital,” the report said.
“The proportion of households which were tenants/lodgers was 50%. There is a need for the ministry responsible for National Housing and Social Amenities to accelerate programmes aimed at improving access to affordable and quality housing. Focus should be on construction of new housing units and upgrading of informal settlements.”
The report also noted that there was a need for the private sector to complement government efforts in improving access to decent accommodation.
It further stated that the proportion of households using firewood for cooking remains high at 21,5%.
“There is a need to maintain the trajectory of producing and improving access to energy with minimum environmental damage.
“There is a need for councils and the Environmental Management Agency to enforce strategies to protect the natural resource from exploitation for energy, while minimising negative impact on livelihoods. “The majority of urban households (50%) were tenants/lodgers and 8% were using tied accommodation. About 21% of urban households had title deeds to their property while 13% owned the property but did not have title deeds.
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“Bulawayo (38,3%) had the highest proportion of households with title deeds. Harare had the highest proportion of households without title deeds (21,8%). Masvingo (64,5%) had the highest proportion of households which were tenants or lodgers.”
The report also stated that about 50% of urban households shared dwellings and Matabeleland South (64%) and Masvingo (63%) had the highest proportion of households sharing a dwelling. It noted that the average number of households per shared dwelling was two to three.
“Matabeleland South (3 to 7) and Masvingo (3 to 7) had the highest number of households sharing a dwelling,” the report said.
ZimVAC is a consortium of government, development partners, United Nations, non-governmental organisations, technical agencies and academia.
It was established in 2002 and is led and regulated by the government.
This survey focused on urban households residing in the medium-density, high-density, and peri-urban areas of Zimbabwe and it covered urban council areas, administrative centres, growth points and other urban areas.
The 2022 ZimStat master sampling frame was used to draw 25 enumeration areas for each domain using the probability proportional to population size method.
Primary data collection took place from January 25 to February 10, 2023 while data analysis and report writing ran from February 15 to 23, 2023.
Various secondary data sources and field observations were used to contextualise analysis and reporting.
