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NewsDay

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Harare South legislator dragged into land wrangle

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Harare South legislator Shadreck Mashayamombe has been dragged into a land wrangle involving Broadway Investments, a sand mining company, and 26 families settled at Chizororo Farm on the outskirts of the capital city.

Harare South legislator Shadreck Mashayamombe has been dragged into a land wrangle involving Broadway Investments, a sand mining company, and 26 families settled at Chizororo Farm on the outskirts of the capital city.

BY SILENCE CHARUMBIRA

Broadway chief executive officer Simbarashe Mupandanyama yesterday told NewsDay that despite several court orders barring residents from continued occupation of the land, they had stayed put allegedly at the instigation of the MP.

Mashayamombe yesterday said the residents had nowhere to go.

“They settled there in 2003 and if they start evicting them now, where do they go? We are engaging the government to see if Broadway can be compensated, but we are against a situation where in this rainy season families are evicted,” Mashayamombe said.

“These people even have offer letters from government and they got the land a long time ago when I was still in school. We will see how we can assist them.”

GAVEL

The farm has been at the centre of a wrangle after the Ministry of Lands gazetted it for resettlement during the land reform programme in 2003, but later rescinded the decision after a court order was granted against subdivision of the land for agricultural purposes.

The 2003 order noted that the farm had no arable land and thus could not be occupied under the land resettlement programme and since it was also in the green zone of Harare International Airport, only plots and not high and low-density suburbs could be constructed.

Mupandanyama said the organisation had lost $16 million worth of property owing to the vandalism by the invaders.

He said some of them while acknowledging being illegal settlers, were now stuck at the farm as they had invested their life savings on the occupied land.

“When the invasions were started in 2003, they sought to consolidate all three farms in the area, namely Nyarungu owned by Jetmaster, Eye Court and Chizororo. But Jetmaster went to court and won the case. Pungwe Chimurenga Housing Co-operatives which were spearheading the invasion defied the court order and went on to subdivide the farm into 1 470 residential stands,” Mupandanyama said.

Having acquired the farm in 2000, Broadway failed to get a deeds transfer from the previous owners Mashonaland Holdings and went back to court in 2009.

“We went back to court for determination of ownership and ejectment and we got an order to eject them, but they turned violent. We finally got a writ of ejectment this year granted by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku,” he said.

They then evicted the residents on December 8 this year with the assistance of the police and the Sherriff of the High Court only for them to return two days later.

Mupandanyama said they were now moving to enlist the services of the police to evict the settlers to pave way for repairs and resumption of operations.