By Own Correspondent
With the rain season having started, some 224 families who lost their homes in the devastating Cyclone Idai are reportedly still living in tents because the government is yet to build homes for them since March 2019 when the disaster struck parts of Chimanimani and Chipinge.
The Civil Protection Unit (CPU) has since blamed Econet which pulled out of its promise to build 500 houses for those affected by Cyclone Idai for unspecified reasons.
This was revealed by Edgar Seenza, the Manicaland provincial development coordinator when he was speaking to this publication.
“As you are aware, Econet promised to build 500 houses for the affected families, but they later pulled out from the deal through our head office, which is the Ministry of Local Government in Harare.
“China had also promised to build 200 houses, but the Covid-19 pandemic affected all this. So our plans were put into disarray as government.We have no option as we had to start to mobilise funds to build the houses.
“Government took the most expensive programme of rebuilding the roads. Rebuilding the roads is the most expensive exercise, which we had to do as government.
“You can see what the government has been doing on the roads and President Emmerson Mnangagwa came to commission the roads, but work is still going on.
“We decided that the families should have a source of livelihood, that is why we abandoned Nedziwa and opted for Westend where there is enough adjacent land where there are houses being built,” he added.
“As government, we want the families to have a source of livelihood._
According to Seenza permanent houses are being done in phases and an initial 20 houses are complete, while another 30 houses are almost complete.
The government promised the people affected by Cyclone Idai that they will have homes by year-end which is highly unlikely given the progress at hand.
