By Caleb Chikwawawa
National Housing and Social Amenities minister Daniel Garwe has vowed to end the menace of land barons who have fleeced unsuspecting home seekers out of their hard-earned savings and further sponsored the mushrooming of illegal settlements in parts of the country.
He was speaking at a conference on the UDCORP Projects and UDCORP Transformation Strategy Convenors in Harare this week.
“We are aware of the challenges that we have been facing in terms of informal settlements that have come up throughout the country,” said the minister.
“We have taken a very strong position as government to ensure that the animal called a land baron is dealt with effectively now.
“There is no space for land barons in our community.
“His Excellency is on record saying land barons have no place in Zimbabwe’s future, in Zimbabwe today, in Zimbabwe tomorrow; so land barons are being warned wherever they are.
“We are going to be chasing them away, we are going to be prosecuting and arresting them, we are going to take over the land from the barons and take it back to the Ministry of Local Government.
“It’s state land and it does not belong to the land barons.”
Minister Garwe urged home seekers not to be too desperate to a point of buying land from illegal land sellers.
He also said the country will now implement the policy of building vertically so as to preserve space for farming and other projects.
Zimbabwe faces an acute shortage of housing for its ballooning population.
