Lack of amenities forces ZANU-PF beneficiaries to leave Hopley Farm

 By Tererai Karimakwenda
  30 December 2005

Most of the people who were recently allocated stands and houses at the Hopley Farm squatter camp outside Harare during the visit by UN special envoy Jan Egeland have started complaining about the poor living conditions at the site. These people were not victims of Operation Murambatsvina as the government claimed at the time but ZANU-PF supporters used as a cover so the outside world would believe that Operation Garikai, the reconstruction phase, was a success.

These beneficiaries were all ruling party sympathisers taken from their homes in the surrounding areas of Waterfalls, Mbare, Glen Norah Chitungwiza and elsewhere. They had expected a better life in a new home but found themselves worse off. Problems at Hopley regarding the lack of clean drinking water and sanitation had been well-publicised before Egeland visited the camp, leading to speculation these intended beneficiaries had been forced to move to the site.

Construction on most of the structures had not been completed when they were handed over, and some of the families had already bought building materials when they decided it was not worth finishing the project. Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa reports that a good number of them have returned to their original homes.
Meanwhile the government is reported to have demanded that UN officials tear down a prototype emergency shelter built at Hoply Farm. According to a Voice of America Studio 7 report, Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo ordered the UN to destroy the model home complaining that it is substandard. Yet the residents are living in the open with little more than plastic sheets to fend off the elements. The United Nations Development Program may go head to head with Chombo because they are insisting that the UN Habitat agency collaborated with a team from the government in designing and building the controversial model home.