By HRH Princess Eugene Majuru, Princess of Harare — Voice for the Voiceless
There is nothing wrong with wanting Zimbabwe to be clean, orderly, safe and beautiful.
There is nothing wrong with expecting property owners, businesses, churches, institutions and local authorities to take responsibility for the condition of their surroundings.
Indeed, a clean and well-maintained built environment is something every Zimbabwean should be proud of.
But, Honourable Minister Daniel Garwe, the way a policy is implemented matters just as much as the policy itself.
Your latest directive requiring property owners across Zimbabwe’s 92 local authorities to repair, renovate, repaint, clean and maintain buildings and surrounding areas deserves serious consideration—not because the objective of improving our towns and cities is wrong, but because the people expected to implement it are human beings living through extremely difficult economic circumstances.
According to reporting on the directive, the measures apply to shopping centres, business complexes, industrial properties, offices, churches and other places of worship, as well as private homes. The Government says property owners who fail to comply may face a fine of up to Level 5, imprisonment for up to six months, or both.
That is a serious enforcement mechanism.
And therefore, Minister, I ask you to pause and consider the practical realities facing ordinary Zimbabweans.
Immediate effect: but with what money?
The words “with immediate effect” are what concern me most.
A government can issue a directive immediately. But a family cannot necessarily produce money immediately.
A church cannot necessarily raise funds immediately.
A small business cannot necessarily find money immediately.
An elderly homeowner cannot necessarily repaint a house immediately.
A struggling family may own a property but have very little disposable income.
Zimbabweans have endured years of economic hardship, unemployment, declining purchasing power and difficult living conditions. Many people are simply trying to keep food on the table, pay school fees, pay rent or mortgages, meet medical expenses and keep their businesses alive.
So when the Government says: repair, renovate, repaint and beautify immediately—or face penalties, the obvious question from ordinary citizens is:
Where are they expected to get the money?
Will the Government provide grants?
Will local authorities provide affordable assistance?
Will there be financing arrangements?
Will there be phased compliance?
Will elderly, vulnerable and low-income property owners be treated differently from wealthy commercial property owners?
These are not unreasonable questions.
They are questions that should have been considered before threatening people with fines and imprisonment.
The objective is understandable. The implementation needs humanity.
Let me be very clear: I am not opposed to a cleaner Zimbabwe.
I am not opposed to property owners taking responsibility.
I am not opposed to local authorities enforcing existing laws.
I am not opposed to tackling genuinely dangerous, unsafe, unsanitary or severely neglected buildings.
In fact, I believe local authorities should have effective systems for dealing with buildings that pose genuine risks to residents and the public.
But there is a fundamental difference between enforcing minimum safety and sanitation standards and expecting every property owner to undertake potentially expensive beautification work immediately.
The Government itself says that the directive is intended to deal with dilapidated and undesirable structures and to improve the built environment.
That objective should therefore be pursued intelligently.
Good governance is not simply about issuing instructions. Good governance is about understanding the circumstances of the people who must comply with those instructions.
Minister, give people time to prepare
I respectfully call upon you and your ministry to go back to the drawing board and reconsider the implementation timetable.
Give property owners three to six months, depending on the nature and seriousness of the work required.
For buildings presenting an immediate danger to life, obviously, emergency intervention should take place.
But where a property simply needs repainting, landscaping, repairs to walls, general cleaning or other non-emergency improvements, owners should be given a reasonable period within which to comply.
A phased approach would be far more constructive.
For example:
Phase One: Inspection and identification of properties requiring attention.
Phase Two: Formal written abatement notices specifying exactly what needs to be corrected.
Phase Three: A reasonable compliance period—perhaps three to six months depending on the scale of the work.
Phase Four: Follow-up inspections and support for property owners who are making genuine efforts to comply.
Phase Five: Enforcement against those who deliberately refuse to comply after being given reasonable notice and an opportunity to remedy the situation.
That is enforcement with humanity.
Not every problem requires a prison sentence
Minister, I also ask you to consider the message sent when imprisonment is placed prominently alongside a beautification directive.
There must be proportionality.
Someone whose building has become dangerous because of structural deterioration is not necessarily in the same situation as a homeowner whose house needs painting.
A small church struggling to raise money for repairs is not necessarily in the same position as a large commercial property owner.
A pensioner living in an old family home is not necessarily in the same position as a property developer with multiple commercial buildings.
One policy should not ignore these differences.
Enforcement should distinguish between deliberate refusal, inability to comply, negligence and genuine financial hardship.
Where a person is willing to comply but needs additional time, the system should have room for compassion.
Local authorities also have responsibilities
There is another part of this conversation that cannot be ignored.
If Government wants citizens to live in clean, beautiful and orderly communities, then local authorities must also fulfil their responsibilities.
Citizens pay rates, taxes, licences and other charges.
They expect functioning roads, refuse collection, drainage, street lighting, water infrastructure and properly maintained public spaces.
The Government has itself acknowledged that local authorities face revenue challenges and that service delivery remains constrained by factors including low local revenue inflows and delayed disbursement of devolution funds.
So the beautification conversation must be two-way.
Citizens have responsibilities. Councils have responsibilities. Government has responsibilities.
You cannot ask citizens to create beautiful communities while public infrastructure around them remains neglected.
A beautifully painted house surrounded by uncollected rubbish, broken roads, blocked drains and inadequate street lighting does not constitute a properly functioning city.
Beautification must be part of a wider programme of service delivery, not simply a punishment campaign against property owners.
There is already a lesson in consultation
Minister Garwe, your own ministry has demonstrated elsewhere that consultation and phased implementation are possible.
When local authorities were required to prepare masterplans, authorities that missed deadlines were granted extensions, while draft plans were subjected to a 60-day public exhibition period during which stakeholders could review, comment and raise objections.
That principle of allowing people time to prepare and participate should not disappear when dealing with ordinary homeowners and property owners.
People deserve to understand what is expected of them.
They deserve written notices.
They deserve reasonable deadlines.
They deserve an opportunity to explain genuine difficulties.
And they deserve to know exactly what standard their property is expected to meet.
Ubuntu must remain at the centre of governance
Zimbabwe is not merely a collection of buildings.
Zimbabwe is its people.
Behind every house is a family.
Behind every small business is a person trying to survive.
Behind every church building are congregants contributing what they can.
Behind every rural or urban property is a human story.
That is why I ask: what happened to Ubuntu?
We cannot build a better Zimbabwe by forgetting the human beings who live in it.
Development must have a human face.
Order must have compassion.
Enforcement must have proportionality.
And leadership must have the wisdom to recognise when a good objective is being undermined by an unnecessarily harsh method of implementation.
Minister Garwe, listen to the people
Honourable Minister, this is not a call to abandon the programme.
It is a call to improve it.
Do not turn beautification into another source of fear for ordinary Zimbabweans.
Do not make citizens feel that the Government is standing over them with a stick when what they need is guidance, reasonable time and practical support.
Set clear standards.
Inspect properties fairly.
Identify genuine hazards.
Give people three to six months where the work is non-emergency.
Allow phased compliance.
Consider vulnerable and low-income property owners.
Work with financial institutions and local authorities to explore affordable repair mechanisms.
Publish clear guidelines so that “undesirable” does not become an arbitrary term interpreted differently from one council to another.
And most importantly, talk to the people.
Zimbabweans are not opposed to development.
They are not opposed to clean cities.
They are not opposed to beautiful homes and communities.
They simply want policies that recognise the economic reality in which they live.
Minister Garwe and your team, I respectfully urge you:
Go back to the drawing board.
Keep the vision of cleaner, safer and more beautiful Zimbabwean towns and cities.
But reconsider the implementation.
Give people time.
Give people clarity.
Give people an opportunity to comply.
And where necessary, give people support.
Because leadership is not measured only by how quickly an instruction is enforced.
It is measured by how wisely it is implemented and how many people are able to move forward with dignity.
Zimbabwe needs clean and beautiful cities.
But Zimbabwe also needs compassionate governance.
Let us beautify our country without humiliating its people.
Let us enforce the law without losing our humanity.
Let us pursue development without forgetting Ubuntu.
Honourable Minister Daniel Garwe, this is my appeal to you—not as an opponent of development, but as a voice for the voiceless.
HRH Princess Eugene Majuru
Princess of Harare
Voice for the Voiceless
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