Political Sabotage Strangling Epworth’s Urban Rebirth?
Staff Writer
For decades, Epworth has existed in the collective imagination as a monument to human resilience, a sprawling tapestry of informal settlements on the periphery of Harare where the marginalized carved out a living from the dust.
However, in 2026, that resilience is being pushed to a breaking point.
What should be a season of transformation, headlined by the Presidential Title Deeds Empowerment Scheme and the 2024–2040 Master Plan, has instead devolved into a high-stakes theater of political warfare.
At the heart of this crisis is a calculated campaign of obstruction that pits partisan interests against the fundamental right of a community to achieve dignity, security, and economic sovereignty.
The primary engine of delay is not, as some would suggest, merely bureaucratic lethargy.
Instead, the Epworth Residents Development Association (ERDA) points to a sophisticated “internal assault” led by local political figures, including CCC legislator for Epworth South, Zivai Mhetu, and Epworth North legislator Mbofana Mutana Taedzwa.
These actors stand accused of orchestrating a “firefighter-arsonist” strategy,by allegedly sowing disinformation by labeling the title deeds program a “legal trap” and filing frivolous court challenges.
These lawsuits trigger mandatory judicial injunctions, freezing all administrative progress on the ground.
The same legislators then publicly lambast the government for the “sluggish” pace of the rollout they helped paralyze.
According to ERDA Secretary General Peter Nyapetwa, the cost of this litigation is borne by the poor.
”Residents are reportedly coerced into funding legal fees to challenge the very programs designed to empower them,”
”Every month spent in a courtroom is a month a family is denied the ability to use their home as collateral for credit or a legacy for their children,” echoed Nyapetwa
The Blueprint for Survival for the Epworth community,was the introduction of the Epworth Master Plan in 2024
The 2024–2040 Epworth Master Plan is not a mere administrative document; it is a “final opportunity” to transition from chaos to a modernized urban center.
Epworth’s industrial potential is being “strangled in its cradle.”
Informal dwellings have encroached upon zones designated for factories.
The Master Plan seeks to,protect industrial corridors,ensuring investors have the “structural certainty” to build without fear of demolitions ,whilst transitioning Epworth from a “dormitory town” to an economic hub
The loss of the Olympiafrica Stadium site to illegal settlers is a haunting example of “arrested development.”
When recreational spaces evaporate, a social vacuum emerges.
The Master Plan aims to reclaim these “third spaces” to foster community identity and provide the youth with alternatives to the darker impulses of disen
Epworth has effectively run out of room to bury its dead.
The unplanned expansion has crowded out cemetery space, forcing residents into the indignity of seeking distant, unaffordable burial sites.
The Master Plan provides a structured expansion of boundaries to restore the dignity of mourning.
The danger of delaying the Master Plan is not theoretical,it is existential.
Recent catastrophic flash floods in Ward 5 (Jacha) have demonstrated the “suicidal” trajectory of unplanned settlement.
Epworth Housing Director Dennis Muranduri clarified that, the perceived lack of momentum is, in fact, the byproduct of exacting environmental due diligence.
Departing from the unregulated urban sprawl that characterized previous eras, the Presidential Title Deeds Empowerment Scheme seeks to issue land titles underpinned by scientific rigor and legal integrity.
”Comprehensive hydrological assessments are conducted, and technical experts must certify that the terrain possesses the geomorphological stability necessary for permanent structural development,” Muranduri articulated.
The intricate topography of Epworth dictates that numerous sectors are situated on precarious substrates or in proximity to shallow water tables, which pose significant risks if not managed with meticulous oversight.
“Rigorous verification is indispensable to guarantee that inhabitants are not situated within alluvial basins or flood-prone wetlands, thereby preempting potential ecological degradation and personal catastrophe,”said Epworth Housing Director Dennis Muranduri
Issuing title deeds on unstable ground or flood-prone marshes would be professional negligence.
The Master Plan seeks to introduces
robust drainage systems to prevent the “liquefaction” of home foundations seen in recent storms as well as wetland protection , preserving the “biological kidneys” of the landscape to regulate hydraulic flow.
The Master Plan will also approve,land tenure precarious,unregulated legal title deeds/collateral
infrastructure
The current stalemate is a “crime against the community’s development.
” While politicians engage in legal gymnastics, 36 residents from 19 families remain displaced at Epworth High School, their homes erased by floods that proper planning could have mitigated,” added Epworth Residents Development Association Secretary General Peter Nyapetwa.
The 2024–2040 Master Plan proposes three non-negotiable pillars for the future:
Vertical Urbanization, abandoning the “luxury of the sprawl” to save land for industry.
Boundary Expansion, a “clean slate” to implement modern standards.
Regularization with Empathy, balancing the necessity of the law with the human reality of the displaced.
Ultimately, the battle for Epworth is a choice between the chaos of the past and the order of the future.
To allow political influence to further hinder the approval of the Master Plan is to consign thousands to a cycle of permanent poverty and environmental vulnerability.
