200 Gwanda home-seekers clash with land developer

A HARARE company, Forit Contracting (Pvt) Limited, which reportedly acquired land to construct houses in Gwanda, is embroiled in a bitter wrangle with over 200 potential homeowners.

The applicants reportedly paid between US$3 000 and US$11 000 for the stands.

The agreement with the company was that it would service the stands, but since 2015, there has not been any progress.

The stands are at Judds Farm and after signing contracts and paying instalments, the beneficiaries were shown their stands.

“We bought some stands at Judds in 2015, but the developer has failed to deliver what we paid for. We were issued with agreements of sale when we finished our payments. However, there has not been any progress made. The owner of the project, Kumbuza Mahlatini, has been making false promises,” one of the beneficiaries said.

Beneficiaries said the agreements of sale were presided over by the law firm Masawi & Partners.

“More people were paying for the stands as they were not aware that others had joined the project in 2015 and nothing was delivered.”

The source said stand owners were not allowed to develop the stands on their own.

Gwanda mayor Njabulo Siziba said the project started in 2015, while his council came into office in 2018.

“We found out that council had a piece of land and it engaged Forit to put up roads, sewage reticulation systems on the land and, in return, the company would be given a piece of land as payment,” Siziba said.

“It appears Forit Company started selling stands to home-seekers even before servicing them and squandered the money. Up to now, the stands are not serviced. Council has on several occasions engaged the company and they are saying they have no money to service the land.”

He said Forit kept on giving timelines for completion of the project, which were not fulfilled.

Mahlatini admitted that his company was given a contract to develop and service stands at Judds Farm, but was still sourcing for funding, adding that the government was yet to approve its developmental applications.

“At some point, we held a meeting together with council and our lawyer. We were given a go-ahead to sell the stands, but at the same time we were still sourcing funding. We had secured a funder from Indonesia who came here and was satisfied with the project. The government wanted proof of funding. We sent our papers to the government.

“I have since signed for €1 billion funding and as I speak, I am delivering letters to council and the government to that effect. I will go back to Indonesia in two weeks’ time to finalise the process. Our projects are not only in Gwanda, we are working everywhere in the country. The plan is to develop 20 000 houses in Gwanda,” he said.

He told NewsDay that the money paid by the beneficiaries has not yet been used.

“At some point, I thought that we should reimburse the people because we had not yet found a funder for the project. We are getting closer to finding one and people must be patient,” he said.

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