PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa’s announcement that victims of State land in and around urban centres, sold to them clandestinely by land barons countrywide, would this time not face forced evictions is a welcome relief.
The president and first secretary of Zanu PF delivered the news while addressing the 335th politburo session at party headquarters in Harare last week.
Mnangagwa was responding to a scathing Justice Tendai Uchena Land Commission report on State land worth in execess of US$3 billion that was sold to desperate urban and peri-urban homeseekers, and straight into the pockets of the land barons since 1995.
Revelations by the Land Commission were shocking though unsurprising.
Perpetrators of this scandal were identified as some among stalwarts of the 1970s war of liberation, connections of those holding high offices in politics, housing cooperatives and developers.
But of particular interest is Harare South, where land barons, housing co-operatives and one stocklisted agri-based entity took turns to rob vulnerable homeseekers in the area.
Co-operatives were first on the scene, dividing Saturday Retreat into residential lots and selling them to tens of thousands homeseekees before and after Operation Restore Order (Operation Murambatsvina) of the early 2000s.
The land sales at Saturday Retreat were deliberately shambolic, but designed to benefit both the land barons and co-operatives.
Any standholder who missed one or two consecutive payments would reportedly have their land withdrawn and sold to the next bidder.
After land barons and co-operatives had done their time, then came in Saturday Retreat, masquerading as Crest Breeders.
Saturday Retreat started collecting millions of United States dollars from the residents, purportedly to recoup money owned to Crest Breeders by government after its land was listed and compulsorily acquired in 2005.
“Residents of Harare South have suffered a lot,” said on of the residents who declined to be named for fear of victimisation. ” We have had co-operatives, land barons and CFI (Crest Breeders) collect money from us but not a single development has been made.
But Saturday Retreat residents have questioned the rationale behind the stocklisted entity making such receipts when it was no longer owners of the land, saying they should now deal directly with government for compensation.
There are reports that one Shava – a Saturday Retreat employee – may have converted the money collected from residents for personal use.
Shava did not pick up his phone when several attempts to get comment from him by this publication were made.
Harare South Member of Parliament, Tongai Mnangagwa said he was working hard to ensure that people from his constituency did not suffer double jeopardy, having once been affected by Operation Restore Order (Operation Murambatsvina) which was superintended by the late former President Robert Mugabe’s regime in the 2000s.
“As MP for this area, I am working to ensure that our people do not suffer another fate of the like of Operation Murambatsvina,” he said, adding: “We will ensure smooth regularisation of all residential land in Harare South.”
Tongai said those currently occupying wetlands and other sites meant for schools and clinics would be relocated.
