HARARE metropolitan provincial administrator Alfred Tome has been sucked into a legal wrangle involving the estate of the late former PF-Zapu central committee member Stephen Omar Hayisa.
Report by Paidamoyo Muzulu
Last Wednesday, Assistant Master of the High Court Simon Madi presided over the edict meeting after it emerged Tome had allocated one of the properties to a certain Rukani although he had not been appointed executor of the estate.
Madi summoned Tome to appear at the High Court on Wednesday to explain his role in the late politician’s estate.
Hayisa died in exile in the United Kingdom in 2006, leaving behind four immovable properties in Borrowdale, Avondale and Ardbennie. The former PF-Zapu official had fled the country during the colonial era in 1968 and never came back.
Francis, Hayisa’s only child, has since engaged Mtetwa and Nyambirai law firm and regained control of the other three properties — 17 Wood Lane, Borrowdale; 20 Kent Avenue, Avondale and Lot 39 MM of Ardbennie.
He, however, failed to gain access to the fourth property located at 20 Surrey Road, Avondale, as Rukani has allegedly claimed ownership of the property saying it was allocated to him by Tome.
Rukani last week produced a letter from Tome as proof of his legal occupation of the property.
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However, Tome distanced himself from the case when NewsDay contacted him for comment on Wednesday.
“The letter simply confirmed Rukani was staying at the property since he had asked me to give him proof of residence when he approached a bank for a loan,” Tome said.
Rukani declined to comment on the matter referring all questions to Tome.
The Hayisa case mirrors that of other ex-PF-Zapu cadres who have lost their properties to the State since independence after the government confiscated some of the party’s properties at the height of the Gukurandi era between 1982 and 1987.
Francis is an information technology expert and is back in Zimbabwe.
