16 Zimbabwe: No justice for the victims of forced evictions of any security of tenure and absence of basic water and sanitation facilities. These issues are discussed below. In Gwanda the City Council submitted 400 names from its housing waiting list to the IMC allocating some 246 Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle houses. The Council list reportedly included only 14 people affected by Operation Murambatsvina.46 Although people from a squatter camp outside Gwanda town had been evicted during Operation Murambatsvina, none of these people appeared on the list the Council submitted to the Committee, because the area from which they were evicted falls under the Rural District Council and not the City Council. The city official did not know how many of the 400 people on the housing waiting list had been allocated Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle housing but did not think any of the squatters affected by Operation Murambatsvina had benefited. In Harare a city official claimed that the beneficiaries of houses at Whitecliffe, one of three Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle sites in Harare where approximately 470 houses have been constructed, were mostly police, soldiers and civil servants. The housing department of Harare City Council was reportedly given less than 20 houses at Whitecliffe to allocate to people on its housing waiting list. In fact allocation of housing and stands at Whitecliffe has been dogged by allegations of corruption and contradictory information has come from government sources. The Parliamentary Committee investigating Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle in April 2006 was told that no houses had been allocated at Whitecliffe. 47 In July 2006 the acting District Administrator for Harare West and the Harare Provincial Administrator were arrested in connection with corrupt allocation of housing at Whitecliffe, where they are alleged to have allocated 300 houses and 115 stands to “undeserving people”.48 The case, reported in the state media, revealed not only evidence of corruption, but further evidence of a government policy that Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle housing and stands are not to be exclusively allocated to victims of Operation Murambatsvina. According to state media the Ministry of Local Government’s criteria for allocation of houses and stands at Whitecliffe include government employees earning less than Z$10 million (US$100) as well as Operation Murambatsvina victims. 49 Houses which had been allocated to government employees earning more than Z$10 million are to be repossessed. At Hopley IDP camp – which is populated by victims of Operation Murambatsvina who were forcibly moved there by the government in July 2005 – sources with access to the area confirmed that some of the approximately 200 Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle houses built there had been allocated to civil servants.50 Bare stands have also been allocated to some 46 Interview with senior city official, Gwanda, April 2005. Second report of the Portfolio Committee on Local Government on progress made on the Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle Programme, June 2006, S.C. 21, 2006. 48 The Herald (Zimbabwe), “Officials face arrest over graft charges”, 20 July 2006; The Daily Mirror (Zimbabwe), “Another official nabbed in Whitecliffe saga”, 22 July 2006; The Herald (Zimbabwe), “Garikai houses: ZANU-PF chairperson in court”, 28 July 2006. 49 The Daily Mirror, “Another official nabbed in Whitecliffe saga”, 22 July 2006. 50 Amnesty International interviews with humanitarian aid workers, May 2006; See also: Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, press release, “ZLHR disturbed by continued destruction of shelter and non-provision of housing for the victims of Operation Murambatsvina”, 19 May 2006. 47 Amnesty International 8 September 2006 AI Index: AFR 46/005/2006