NATIONAL AUDIT WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY ANGO N PVO 221/68 National Association Of Non-Governmental Organisations REPORT OF THE OPERATION GARIKAI/HLALANI KUHLE national audit Within the Context of Social Accountability by Edmore Mufema Institute of Development Studies Email: [email protected] / [email protected] 2 Other Explanations 15 The Impacts 15 Social and humanitarian impacts 16 Economic Impacts 16 Political Impacts 16 Institutional Impacts 17 The built environment 17 Concluding remarks 17 Chapter 5 18 Responses to Operation Restore Order 18 The United Nations 18 UNSE Recommendations 18 The West 19 SADC and regional 19 Civil Society 19 Concluding remarks 19 Chapter 6 20 Operation Garikai/ Hlalani Khuhle 20 Description 20 Objectives 20 The process 20 The results 21 Impact on different sectors 21 A SWOC analysis 22 Strengths of Operation Garikai 22 Weaknesses of Operation Garikai 22 Opportunities of Operation Garikai 23 Challenges of Operation Garikai 23 Contents Concluding Remarks 23 Chapter 7 25 Operation Garikai within the Context of Social Accountability 25 Chapter 1 3 Policy issues 25 Executive Summary 3 Conduct of operations 26 Accounting for the use of funds 26 Chapter 2 5 Concluding Remarks 26 Introduction 5 Terms of reference 7 Chapter 8 27 Outline of the report 7 Recommendations and Conclusions 27 Chapter 3 8 Appendices 29 Social Accountability Prior to Operation Appendix 1: Terms of reference 29 Restore Order 8 Appendix 2: Population displacements, 2005 30 Concept and Indicators 8 Appendix 3: Housing and SMEs Needs, Social Accountability in Zimbabwean History 9 Operation Garikai 30 Concluding remarks 11 Appendix 4: Houses built under Garikai model, 2006 30 Chapter 4 12 Appendix 5: Factory Shells and Vendor Operation Murambatsvina 12 Marts, June 2006 30 Introduction 12 Appendix 6: Serviced stands under Overview of operation Murambatsvina 13 Operation Garikai phase 2 30 Objectives of operation Murambatsvina 15 The official position 15 References 31 2 3 civil society. When a member of the research team of this project introduced the national audit project to the Secretariat of Operation Garikai, the latter replied that the Secretariat is not accountable to the civil society but to The Exchequer who provides funding for the project. The Secretariat appears ignorant of the obvious and simple fact that the exchequer administers public funds and that in a health democracy the exchequer is accountable to the public. By extension, the Secretariat is ignorant of the fact that it is accountable to the public! In Zimbabwe, the lack of transparency and accountability is one of the key issues hampering development and democracy in general and the development of human settlement issues in particular. The human settlement issues are in a state of crisis in Zimbabwe. Housing is inadequate and for the low resourced segments of the society, it is of poor quality. For the majority of the population, living conditions in cities and rural areas are poor; there is lack of access to adequate and quality services such as water, electricity, sanitation, roads, refuse collection and safety. These conditions have been progressively deteriorating over the last twenty or so years. Operation Murambatsvina exacerbated the situation and brought to the fore problems of poor planning, under-investment and coping with rapid urbanization that Zimbabwe has endured over the last 25 years. Operation Garikai, the successor to Operation Chapter Murambatsvina has not lived up to its expectations. From the onset Operation Garikai had no capacity in 1 terms of conception and resources to adequately handle the magnitude of issues and problems in human EXECUTIVE SUMMARY settlement exposed by Murambatsvina. At its best Operation Garikai is a poor window dressing exercise yet in reality, it is a total failure. It has brought out key problems of funding and inability to deliver targeted n 2005, Zimbabwe celebrated its Silver Jubilee of housing and informal business units with the necessary Independence with the launch of Operation I services backup for decent living and livelihood of the Murambatsvina (clean-up): characterized by low resourced communities. indiscriminate destruction of informal shelters, settlements and business units in the name of cleaning up urban areas. Up to 700,000 poor and most The Parliamentary Portfolio on Local Government and vulnerable families lost their homes, sources of Housing Reports vindicate the recommendations of the livelihood or both. Operation Garikai / Hlalani Kuhle United Nations Special Envoy on Human Settlements (stay well) was conceived as a successor programme to Issues in Zimbabwe that the state has no capacity, deliver low-cost and decent housing, adequate vending without engaging the international community, to and factories as well as small and medium business deliver services to meet the magnitude of human units for the poor and vulnerable, in particular settlement needs in the country. addressing the needs of the victims of Operation Murambatsvina. To date, what Operation Garikai has delivered is shrouded in intelligence secret. There is every reason to Both operations were carried out in heavy top-down be skeptical about the success of the programme approaches by members of armed forces, secret because with its battered image, success in anything is intelligence services, police and local government celebrated as national glory in Zimbabwe. On the agencies without any input from concerned people and contrary, there is evidence that some victims of 4 Operation Murambatsvina are still holed up in transit economic justice. That civil society takes a more camps. These transit camps where people live in tents proactive role in advocating for social accountability seem to have assumed the dignity of being permanent especially among public office bearers and in public settlements. There is also evidence of victims of policy. That civil society scales up effort to get Operation Murambatsvina living in plastic shacks in international support to provide human settlement slum settlements doted on the outskirts of major urban issues to the poor and vulnerable. areas. Also many have relocated to rural areas and are living in poverty stricken conditions. In addition, the • Increasing greater dialogue between the State, civil few houses built are too small and have no access to society and international community. To identify water, electricity, sanitation, roads, schools, clinics and windows of opportunity to create dialogue and chart refuse collection. Given the corrupt allocation a way out of this malaise. The UN habitat can play a mechanisms, we can not ascertain precisely what significant role. All players to take seriously the task percentage of the victims has benefited from the few of dialogue and consensus building on human small to medium sized business units constructed in the settlement issues. aftermath of Murambatsvina. Also, given the militaristic nature of the operations there is ample evidence that democratic social accountability is not • That the international community scale up practiced at all in all processes related to the operations. interventions in human settlement issues from humanitarian effort and move up to medium and Operation Murambatsvina violated the very ideals that longer term efforts. The international community the Silver Jubilee of Independence was celebrating: need not go through the government channels but freedom from human indignity and violation, freedom through established local NGOs in the housing sector from hunger and poverty, freedom from oppression. who are in dire need of resources to support the poor Operation Garikai / Hlalani Kuhle has not fulfilled and and vulnerable. has no capacity to deliver human settlement needs. The operations failed in terms of participatory development • Increasing civil society engagement of rural issues and democracy, social dialogue, transparency and such as rural housing, land policy, land allocation, accountability. audit of land usage, agrarian issues, and property rights protection. This report recommends the following: • The demilitarization and de-politicization of public • Making housing policy and planning realistic, service, local authorities and state institutions. The accountable and sensitive to low income groups central government must stop interfering in local irrespective of their political orientation government operations. For instance, Harare Commission is illegitimate and ZINWA is usurping • Engagement and consultation of multiple sectors in local authority functions of providing water and the human settlement issues development: sanitation. multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, private financiers, cooperatives and • That the government undertakes corrective macro- the State in transparent and socially accountable economic policy and management to revive the processes. economy and reduce poverty, unemployment and other key socio-economic ills. • Reviving and regulating the informal sector through participatory policy design and licensing policies and systems that are sensitive to the low income • This report recommends the implementation of the businesses. recommendations of the UNSE report. • That priority is accorded to victims of • To crown it all, this report recommends up scaling Murambatsvina in the allocation of available civic education on human rights, good governance, housing units, vendor marts and factory shells in any social accountability and participatory