Suburban
The heavy rains that have been pounding the country recently reignited a problem of flooding which is familiar with each rain season in Matidoda leaving residents to rue their losses as rainwater flooded their yards seeping into their houses and damaging household property.
Diana Nherera
Suburban Reporter
The recent heavy rains resulted in flooding in the suburb while the roads, which were already in a poor state, were left worse off after being heavily damaged by the rains.
A week ago, residents’ representatives and City of Harare officials toured the suburb to assess the damage and investigate the cause of flooding.
It emerged that the certificate of compliance issued for Matidoda suburb was done without following proper procedures while the drainage system does not meet the City of Harare requirements resulting in residents of the area experiencing flooding problems each rain season.
According to former Ward 16 Councillor Denford Ngadziore, who was part of the residents and council delegations, which undertook a tour of the area, the drainage system was shoddy while on some roads there is no drainage at all, factors contributing to the perennial flooding each rain season.
“The drainage system was not properly done and in some roads, not done at all.
“Road culverts are not available at the entrance of most households,” Mr Ngadziore said in a statement.
The former councillor said the meeting between residents’ representatives and council officials who included a roads engineer it was resolved that the Matidoda Residents Association (MRA) through the chair, Mr Mutambara was tasked to look for the developer of the stands in the suburb Mukahuru Construction in order to access the development files.
“Failure to locate the developer and development files will mean property owners will have to engage another developer or council for the redrawing of designs.
“This will be followed by litigation (against) Mukahuru Construction by Matidoda property owners.
“It was agreed that Matidoda Residents Association are to write to the City of Harare’s director of works seeking an urgent intervention to speed up the process.
“MRA promised to deliver the letter to the director by 1 March 2021.
“The city engineer promised to work on the most affected households by floods as we await other procedures,” Mr Ngadziore said in the statement issued after the meeting.
Mr Mutambara said the road network has also been damaged because of poor drainage system in the suburb.
“Each and every time it rains, we have such experiences. The road network in our neighbourhood is so damaged because of the poor drainage.
“The sewer ablution system backflows each time we have heavy rains like right now (last Friday, the system is blocked,” he said.
Residents of Matidoda and Lenana Park say water flows into their houses damaging some of their property while those residents especially in the lower parts of the two suburbs are sometimes forced to relocate due to fears of losing more property if heavy rains continue.
The two suburbs were built on a wetland and underground water has blocked the drainage pipes resulting in the area experiencing floods since 1999 when the two suburbs were developed.
Council reportedly cannot provide any services in the two suburbs as they are alleged to have been built without approved plans from the City of Harare and while Matidoda has a flawed certificate of compliance Lenana Park was two years ago said not to have the certificate.
The residents have for the past 22 years been enduring the flooding and the resultant damages to their household property.
Some of the residents have since left the two suburbs to settle elsewhere in the capital city.
