Bulldozers Raze St Martins Homes After Years of Council Agreements

Methro Masunga heard the engine before she saw the machine.

At 5 a.m. on Friday, August 14, the sound of heavy equipment broke the quiet of St Martins Extension, a suburb in Harare. Masunga, 28, stepped outside to find municipal police shouting as earth movers positioned themselves near her house.

She initially assumed the vehicles were there for road grading or land development. The reality was more immediate. The machinery was preparing to demolish her home.

“I thought they were here for some other business, probably land development or road grading; alas, they had been sent to destroy our homes. We tried to understand, but no one would hear us,” Masunga said.

Masunga is a single mother of three who worked part-time cleaning jobs for five years to save for a home. She began paying for her stand in 2015 and received an allocation in 2019. Residents say the arrangement was formalized in 2020 when they received official documents from the city council.

Her experience is part of a larger dispute involving more than 5,000 houses. City council records reviewed by Al Jazeera list these properties as facing demolition under 37 outstanding High Court orders. A separate council task force inspected 22,255 sites to identify structures on prohibited land.

The municipality states it is enforcing planning regulations against buildings constructed without necessary approvals. Residents argue that the enforcement has affected people who hold allocation letters and agreements of sale issued through municipal processes.

Memory Chengeta, another resident whose home was demolished, noted that a court order had previously halted such operations. “There was a court order for them to stop demolitions. The municipal authorities came with no court order that overturned the previous judgement, but went ahead to destroy the properties,” she said.

Stanley Gama, a spokesperson for the council, told local media that the municipality was targeting structures built illegally by owners who had been warned repeatedly. “We are only demolishing structures built illegally whose owners were told and warned many times not to proceed with construction,” Gama said.

Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume told NewsDay on August 15 that residents with approved plans should produce them during inspections. He declined to comment on the legality of the specific demolitions in St Martins. Principal housing director Edgar Dzehonye added that residents had been warned against building because the area had not been adequately serviced.

Joachim Nhete lost his home after using his retirement package to buy land and build a house. He estimates his investment at more than $10,000. “Unlike some who had home insurance, I didn’t have one,” he said. “I cannot recover the loss and pain. My hope is in the courts of law that Harare City Council must be held accountable and pay us back.”