Politics, Governance and Effectiveness of Housing Cooperatives in Low Income Urban Public Housing Delivery in Zimbabwe: A Case of Zvikatangasekuseka Housing Co-Operative

Abstract

Using qualitative methods the study sought to understand how governance and politics affect the effectiveness of cooperatives in providing low income urban public housing with specific focus on Zvakatangasekuseka Housing Cooperative. Frequent Media reports of housing co-operatives having swindled desperate home seekers of their money, bad governance and personalization of these entities by some leaders among other factors stimulated the study. At the core of the normative declaration of the study was the use of the political predation and agency theories as the main lenses. The findings seem to indicate a high prevalence of the agency and political predation challenges and that these are derailing housing co-operatives from meeting their statutory objectives. The agency problem manifested itself through self enrichment tendencies by leaders of the studied co-operative among others while political predation manifested itself through inter alia imposition of leaders on the co-operatives by some politicians and members of the studied co-operative being forced by politicians to donate towards the state and ZANU-PF functions. The study holds that the conspiracy of the agency and political predation problems against poor desperate home seekers makes housing co-operatives ineffective in achieving the intended results. It is recommended that Building Societies should be exempted from paying tax in order to encourage the purchase of housing by the low income through mortgage arrangements among several others. Such a measure will minimize the role played by housing co-operatives thereby protecting the low income desperate home seekers from the vagaries of the agency and political predation conspiracy.