Senior Zanu PF officials in Mashonaland Central have reportedly called for the ouster of Provincial governor, Martin Dinha, over allegations of undermining the party and the land reform programme.
Impeccable sources within Zanu PF told NewsDay yesterday Dinha was being hounded for allegedly claiming that the government would soon repossess underutilised land from resettled farmers and allocate it to productive farmers.
They also claimed some Zanu PF officials in the province were eyeing his post and wanted to block his reported appointment as deputy secretary for the commissariat in the party’s politburo.
Dinha yesterday told NewsDay he would stand by his statements and would not be intimidated by anyone. He claimed his remarks were in line with President Robert Mugabe’s stance.
Guns allegedly came out blazing against Dinha at a provincial co-ordinating committee meeting in Bindura at the weekend. Dinha said he was not present at the meeting.
“I had gone for General (Constantine) Chiwenga’s brother’s funeral so I was not there. I am appointed by President Mugabe to run the affairs of Mashonaland Central and I will do so without fear or favour. I will not be intimidated by anybody,” he said.
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“Land was taken to be used and the land reform programme is irreversible,” he said.
Officials who attended the meeting allegedly accused Dinha of “reversing the gains of the land reform programme” by giving offer letters to Georgina Brown and Kembo Moyana (jnr), son of the former Reserve Bank governor.
“In this case we took land from Brown and she applied and then the governor accepted and she got the land back. It’s a progressive thing in my view because land reform has never been racial,” Dinha told NewsDay.
In the case of Moyana’s son, he said the Moyanas were from Manicaland and not from Mashonaland Central, but argued land reform was never meant to be regional or tribal.
“It was meant to benefit Zimbabweans and people can get land from any province and if we start to do that (being regional), we would have lost the picture.”
“I stand firmly by my statement that land must be used productively and those underutilising it must be assisted, but where you have too much land that you can’t use, certainly you must give it to others,” he said.
“People cannot take land as a status symbol. Those are the words of the President and I take them as a command. He has said this on many platforms.”
Sources said the meeting where knives were drawn against the governor was attended by senior Zanu PF officials including Transport minister Nicholas Goche and provincial chairman Dickson Mafios.
Mafios confirmed attending the meeting, but denied there was a proposal to pass a vote of no confidence in Dinha.
“That’s not true. The coordinating committee that meets after every three months met in Bindura and there were issues to discuss pertaining to land. He (Dinha) is appointed by the President and therefore no one can pass a vote of no confidence on him. People were only seeking clarity, but he was not there because he had gone for a funeral. It is wrong to complain when the person is not there,” Mafios said.