Zvimba Rural District council is locked in a USD40 million land dispute with a developer identified as Delatfin Engineering company.
According to documents seen by the Zim Morning Post, in 2011 the Zvimba Rural District Council advertised for a tender to develop Haydon Farm, measuring 744,560 hectares. The Council wanted to partner a private developer to service the land and awarded the tender to Delatfin Investments.
According to the agreement, the developer gets 60% of the shares of the proceeds of the partnership while the Council gets 40% plus 10% commonage.
However, on the implementation of the project, it was discovered that only 266 hectares of Haydon Farm was available to the partnership as the other portion was already earmarked for a government Jatropha Project, and the other 100 hectares had been allocated to Diqamond miner Lovemore Kurotwi for a college and truck inn.
But the developer then proceeded to take 120 hectares of land that was not part of the project without the approval of the Zvimba District Council, resulting in a dispute with the owner of the annexed land, Leengate, another developer.
The dispute has seen the Chief ExecutiveOffice of Zvimba Rural District council Peter Hlola being suspended twice in a controversial manner.
“The CEO was suspended twice over this matter, the guys at council are trying to get rid of people who have an institutional memory on the matter as some senior members are benefiting from the land deal,” confirmed an insider.
Hlolo was suspended on Friday 04 July and he was later reinstated on Tuesday 09 July, the letter of reinstating him was accompanied by another letter of suspension.
