Siyaso: A ticking health time bomb

The controversial clean-up campaign was launched by President Robert Mugabe’s government ostensibly to decongest urban areas. It was, however, widely seen as punishment against urban dwellers who had overwhelmingly voted for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the March 2005 general elections.
Before the blitzkrieg that left over two million people homeless, there were more than 20 000 traders at Siyaso — a shanty shopping compound just outside Harare’s central business district.
But as the country navigates its way through a dangerous political minefield to address economic woes caused by years of mismanagement, the re-emergence of Siyaso is posing serious problems to public health and law and order.
It has also presented a tricky situation to the inclusive government of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Mugabe which, obviously, would not want to be seen to be violating human rights by driving the informal traders out of the illegal structures.
Last year, city fathers gave 1 500 vendors at Siyaso the green light to resume trading, albeit after constructing proper and approved structures.
More traders are setting up shop in open spaces along the Mukuvisi River, a development that could easily slip out of control, leading to massive environmental degradation.
Some traders are also reluctant to construct permanent structures because council has not come out clean on the issues of sectional title deeds.
While the return of the informal traders has been sanctioned by council on condition that traders abide by the approved plans, the settlement is fast growing into a prototype of its former self — a jungle of commodities being sold in filthy and dusty environs.
Effectively, the Harare City Council, which is predominantly being run by councillors aligned to Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party, would have to go back to the drawing board.
The director of housing, Justin Chivavaya, told The Financial Gazette this week that the matter was under discussion.
A visit by this reporter to Siyaso showed that because of the prevailing tough economic conditions, traders have failed to raise seed capital, hence, they are bypassing municipal regulations by trading before constructing proper structures.
There are no ablution facilities and raw sewage flows in-between makeshift stalls.
With the cholera epidemic still wrecking havoc in some parts of the city, the situation at Siyaso is like a ticking time bomb.
“We are back,” said one secondhand tyre vendor, with a smile on his face. “This is a temporary set up to allow us to raise money and build proper structures. Council is aware of our problems,” the vendor said.
According to the Harare City Council, traders were supposed to pool resources and build proper structures first before moving in, but like most developments in the Third World, the construction of a new-look Siyaso might never proceed beyond the foundation stage due to financial constraints.
Siyaso is, therefore, a macrocosm of the challenges faced by local authorities and citizens in emerging cities in providing homes, businesses and industrial properties to their citizens.
Urban planning experts have warned that developing economies will not make much progress unless and until councils strictly stick to laid-down standards.
“This is how we end up destroying this country and then blame politicians when we allow people to do things the wrong way.
“It’s feasible for these so-called informal traders to build proper structures as prescribed and they must pay taxes because they are trading, aren’t they?” asked Alderman Jerry Gotora.
“These people (informal traders) want to be entrepreneurs and so they must adhere to principles and practices of running businesses. This business of calling them informal traders is just not on. It’s just a way of evading tax.”
But the problem is not peculiar to Siyaso alone.
Home seekers and landlords in urban areas countrywide have also started rebuilding structures destroyed under Operation Murambatsvina on land that has neither been serviced nor surveyed.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that the formal housing markets in the Third World rarely supply more than 20 percent of new housing stock and out of necessity, people end up constructing shanties, which then give rise to slums.
Zimbabwe has a housing backlog of more than half a million.
A website www.grist.org warns that: “Suffering under a series of crushing pressures, most recently a quarter-century-old regime of draconian international economic policies; cities are systematically polluting, urbanising, and destroying their crucial environmental support systems . . . All the classical principles of urban planning, including the preservation of open space and the separation of noxious land uses from residences, are stood on their heads in poor cities.”
The UN estimates that there were more than one billion slum dwellers in 2005 globally, with the populations now set to grow by 25 million every year.
To mitigate the developmental challenges emerging economies are facing in providing decent homes and places of work, the UN Habitat, which condemned Zimbabwe’s 2005 clean-up operation, has instituted a global campaign to improve the conditions of people living and often working in slum areas and informal settlements in major urban centres of the                       world.
To achieve this objective, the UN Habitat is promoting security of their residential tenure and a direct contribution to the realisation of the commitments of the Millennium Declaration, specifically, the goal of improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020.