{"id":2059,"date":"2026-05-06T18:38:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T18:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/?p=2059"},"modified":"2026-05-06T18:38:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T18:38:37","slug":"garikai-1-the-gift-that-became-a-debt-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/garikai-1-the-gift-that-became-a-debt-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Garikai 1: The Gift That Became a Debt Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Fanuel Chinowaita<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For nearly two decades, the families of Garikai 1 have carried a house that was meant to be a gift. Now, they\u2019re being told to pay a price no one ever named \u2014 or lose it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of Garikai 1 begins not with a roof, but with a demolition. In 2005, Operation Murambatsvina swept through Zimbabwe\u2019s urban centres, reducing homes to rubble and forcing thousands into the open. In Mutare, some of the displaced found shelter in a council bar at OTS Sakubva \u2014 a desperate limbo of crowded floors and uncertain tomorrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, what felt like a miracle arrived. In 2006, exactly 300 families were handed keys to two-roomed houses in a new settlement called Garikai 1. It was a project delivered by the Ministry of Public Works, and for those who had lost everything, it seemed like the hand of providence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the scenes, however, a more complex story was unfolding. Multiple sources familiar with the project reveal that a white man, known only as Mr. Baijuka, intervened after the destruction. Moved by the plight of the homeless, he purchased land and channelled funds through official channels to build 300 houses. His first approach, sources say, was to the then Mutare City Mayor, Kagurabadza. But because the mayor belonged to the opposition, Baijuka was redirected to Public Works. There, he paid the full amount required for construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Houses rose from the ground, and families were allocated. The blessing, however, was only half-built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the homes were handed over unfinished \u2014 no doors, no windows, no roofs, no toilets, no water. Only a handful were completed, and those, residents note with a bitter edge, were on the Natview side and went largely to soldiers and members of the Zimbabwe Prison Service. Those houses had everything fitted, including electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the majority, life began in a shell. Families moved in because they had nowhere else to go. They put down floors with their own hands, fitted windows, and roofed their homes piece by piece. Sanitation was a public pit latrine lined along the river on the Natview side, where queues formed daily. Clean water came from communal taps along Jeff Road, where they queued again. It was survival, not comfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public Works promised to return and finish the job. They never did. So residents sat down and took a decision that would define the next twenty years: if the government wouldn\u2019t complete their homes, they would do it themselves. They pooled their meagre earnings, hired plumbers, and brought water to their doorsteps. They dug for toilets inside their yards. They wired electricity into their walls. By sheer collective will, they turned an unfinished barracks into a liveable community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, walking through Garikai 1, you see what determination can build. But you also feel the weight of what has been placed on those same shoulders. The blessing has curdled into a burden that tightens every month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministry of Public Works has long since handed over the housing stock to the Ministry of National Housing. And that handover brought with it a monthly bill: USD 40 per house. It is a figure that falls on the shoulders of people who were given the houses precisely because they had nothing. Among the 300 families are a few soldiers, prison officers, pensioners, and civil servants. But the majority are unemployed or scraping a living in the informal economy. Forty United States dollars, plus another USD 51 for council rates, is an impossible arithmetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who fall behind quickly discover the steel behind the notices. Letters have been issued warning that failure to settle the debt will result in repossession. The prospect is chilling: to have spent decades finishing a house yourself, only to lose it over a fee whose end point no one can explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest question Garikai 1 residents are asking is one the National Housing ministry refuses to answer: When will we stop paying? What is the total cost? By their own calculations, the money they have paid since 2006 now exceeds what it would cost to buy a residential stand in Mutare\u2019s low-density suburbs. Yet Garikai is a high-density area, with tiny stands of about 150 square metres \u2014 so small that the largest house one can build is a cramped five-room structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there is the matter of the donor. The story of Mr. Baijuka\u2019s payment has been passed down through the years like family lore. If a white benefactor paid for these houses in full, residents ask, why are they still being charged? Was the money not enough? Did it disappear? The ministry says nothing. Officials have avoided the community with the deftness of people who know the questions will be harder than the answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowhere was that avoidance more stark than last Sunday. Residents of Garikai 1 were invited to a meeting. They arrived expecting to face National Housing officials, to demand clarity on the perpetual payments, to protest the unaffordable fees, and to insist that the ministry properly value the houses \u2014 houses that were delivered unfinished and finished by their own sweat. They wanted to ask directly: if the donor paid, why does the debt remain?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the meeting was hijacked into a political rally. National Housing officials did not show up. Campaigning politicians took the stage and promised title deeds \u2014 a familiar promise that blossoms during election season and withers the morning after. Residents sat, their urgent questions unanswered, watching another cycle of empty pledges roll over their lives. “When politicians campaign, they tell people these were free houses given by a certain political party,” one resident said bitterly. “After elections, they vanish.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The absence of officialdom leaves a vacuum that decaying infrastructure fills. The roads of Garikai 1 are cratered and largely impassable. The drainage system is non-existent. Sewage bursts with a dismal regularity, flooding pathways and yards, but National Housing is nowhere to be found to fix it. The ministry that demands payment each month is absent when the consequences of neglect rise to the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents now have a simple, radical demand: National Housing must hand over the houses to the people and to the council. Let the property become theirs, unencumbered, so they can finally own what they have already built. They are not asking for a gift anymore. They are asking for the burden to be lifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garikai 1 is a monument to resilience. It is also a monument to a broken promise that keeps sending invoices. Nearly twenty years after receiving a key to an unfinished shell, the residents are still paying for a house that was supposed to be a blessing, but has slowly become a levy on their very survival. The white donor who started it all, the demolished who became pioneers, the officials who never finished the job \u2014 all are players in a long drama whose final act remains unwritten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for the families of Garikai 1, the question is not historical. It is monthly. It arrives with the bill, with the overflowing sewer, with the politician\u2019s passing smile. And it asks: how much longer can you pay for a blessing that feels so much like a curse?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Fanuel Chinowaita For nearly two decades, the families of Garikai 1 have carried a house that was meant to be a gift. Now, they\u2019re being told to pay a price no one ever named \u2014 or lose it all. The story of Garikai 1 begins not with a roof, but with a demolition. In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2061,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059\/revisions\/2061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}