Source: NEW: Government does not have an appetite to demolish people’s homes — Minister Garwe – herald Online Reporter GOVERNMENT is presently developing a land administration framework that will prevent home-seekers from being duped by land barons by creating a verification system for land ownership, Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe has said. […] The post NEW: Government does not have an appetite to demolish people’s homes — Minister Garwe appeared first on Zimbabwe Situa
Source: NEW: Government does not have an appetite to demolish people’s homes — Minister Garwe – herald
Online Reporter
GOVERNMENT is presently developing a land administration framework that will prevent home-seekers from being duped by land barons by creating a verification system for land ownership, Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe has said.
The new system is intended to tackle the root causes of illegal settlements and land disputes rather than relying on demolitions after people had already invested heavily in their properties.
“Government is not desirous of demolishing people’s homes and Government hasn’t demolished any homes,” he said.
People caught up in land disputes, he said, were not necessarily illegal occupiers, but citizens who had paid for stands from individuals who had no legal authority to sell them.
The result, he said, was that unsuspecting buyers could invest substantial sums in houses before discovering that the land had never been legally allocated or transferred to them.
“We are saying these people have invested so much in building these houses and, in the process, they have created employment for the people that assisted them in building those houses,” he said.
The proposed system would therefore place greater emphasis on verification before construction, with Government seeking to ensure that land offered for sale is legally recognised and capable of being transferred.
“Anyone who is procuring land, whether through a local authority or through private sector, is doing so with land that he can verify that this is purchasable land, it has got legitimate title deeds, it was properly surveyed, properly planned,” Minister Garwe added.
He said such a system would represent a significant shift from dealing with illegal settlements after they have developed to preventing fraudulent or irregular land transactions at the point of sale.
It would also target the activities of land barons and illegal land dealers who have taken advantage of gaps in land administration and the demand for residential stands.
The post NEW: Government does not have an appetite to demolish people’s homes — Minister Garwe appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.
