HOME Affairs co-minister Kembo Mohadi and his family risk 90-day imprisonment for defying a one-year-old High Court order compelling them to remove a security fence they erected around some Beitbridge villagers’ farming plots.
Report by Richard Muponde
This was after four villagers — Given Mbedzi, Soforia Ndou, Aifheli Nare and Kumbirai Ncube — won a High Court case where they were fighting the Mohadis over ownership of the land.
In February 2012, Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha ordered Mohadi, his wife Tambudzani, son Campbell (Jnr) and two of their farm employees to remove their illegal fence from the disputed land.
But the Zanu PF minister’s family defied the order while police, who incidentally fall under Mohadi’s ministry, declined to accompany the Deputy Sheriff to pull down the fence.
This prompted the villagers’lawyer Matshobane Ncube to file a contempt of court charge against the Mohadis and Beitbridge police commander Chief Superintendent Lawrence Chinhengo two months ago.
Ncube told NewsDay yesterday he was now awaiting the court to set down a hearing date.
The villagers want the court to order “that each respondent shall be committed to gaol/prison/jail for a period of ninety (90) days so as to comply with the judgment”.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
“Upon compliance, each respondent shall be released from gaol/prison/jail,” reads part of the application. “Respondents to pay cost of the suit.”
Deputy Sheriff Nkululeko Mbedzi on Tuesday admitted that the Mohadis and the police were in defiance of the court order. “I did not remove the fence. It is still there because the police refused to escort me,” he said.
“I am now waiting for the plaintiffs and their lawyers to tell me the next step as I was informed that they had filed an application for contempt of court. All respondents have brazenly and wilfully refused and/or neglected to comply with this honourable court order rendering me and my co-applicant helpless.”
Mohadi last year lost a series of High Court cases, which included one where a Beitbridge businessman successfully fought the minister’s attempts to grab his companies.
