Zimbabwe’s vice-president has promised that people who lost homes in the government’s controversial urban clean-up campaign will be given priority in a housing programme launched in its wake, a newspaper said on Tuesday.
”Preference should be given to those who had their houses destroyed during the clean-up operation,” Joseph Msika said as he toured a building site at Whitecliff Farm in Harare in comments reported by the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Msika said new houses should not be allocated on the basis of political affiliation.
”It does not matter whether one belongs to the MDC [opposition Movement for Democratic Change] or [the ruling] Zanu-PF. We are Zimbabweans and everyone should benefit,” he said.
The United Nations estimates that up to 700 000 people lost their homes and livelihoods when police moved into slum areas in Zimbabwe’s towns and cities in May, destroying flea markets and ordering residents to take down shacks and cottages deemed illegal in a blitz that lasted more than 10 weeks and attracted international condemnation.
President Robert Mugabe’s government disputes the figure of people affected by the blitz, but in late June it launched an ambitious reconstruction programme.
The government says it will build two million houses in the next five years.
At Whitecliff, 459 houses are at various stages of construction, state radio reported on Tuesday.
Mugabe has said that many of the new houses at Whitecliff will be reserved for civil servants and members of the armed forces.
Msika said he was pleased with the progress made in building houses, the Herald reported.
”I am pleased with the progress. The buildings are up to standard and the people are very happy. That’s all we want. We will go ahead despite whoever is mocking the operation,” he said.
Bill continues to draw criticism
Meanwhile, reports Reesha Chibba, a controversial Bill that was approved on Tuesday last week by Zimbabwe’s Parliament continues to reel in strong criticism.
The Bill stipulates that anybody deemed anti-national will not be allowed to travel abroad. It also stops white farmers from challenging land grabs in court. For those without full citizenship, their voting rights have also been limited.
Sheila Jarvis, a lawyer in Zimbabwe, told the Mail & Guardian Online on Tuesday that the new Bill ”won’t stop people from speaking to the media”.
”It’s just [an attempt by] the government to draw the curtain further down on the Zimbabwe [crisis].”
She added that ”they could take away passports from doctors because it’s not in their [the Zimbabwean government’s] economic interests”.
Zimbabwe is celebrating its 25th anniversary of independence this year.
Jarvis believes ”there’s no mention of freedom” in the country’s celebrations.
”It’s more like a loss of freedom,” she said.