Mugabe snatches land from Chiyangwa
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=15187
By John Chimunhu
Published: March 21, 2010
HARARE – Government has issued notice that it will compulsorily acquire land belonging to property tycoon Phillip Chiyangwa for undisclosed urban developments.
Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement Herbert Murerwa on Friday published a notice confirming that President Robert Mugabe wants Chiyangwa’s land in Stoneridge area of Harare.
“Notice is hereby given. that the President intends to acquire compulsorily the land described in the schedule for urban development,” Murerwa’s statement said.
The notice then listed three properties, one of them belonging to Chiyangwa’s flagship Pinnacle Property Holdings, “being Remainder A of Stoneridge, measuring 586,89 hectares”.
The other two properties listed are also in the capital and belong to the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association and Jetmaster Properties.
The move has thrown jitters into the property market as Chiyangwa has been doing brisk business selling off prime land especially to Zimbabweans in the diaspora.
Recently, Harare Mayor Muchadei Masunda announced that the City Council was probing how Chiyangwa acquired land in Harare, making him possibly the largest private property owner in the city.
Flamboyant Chiyangwa was flighted by Zimbabwe’s minister of Indigenisation and Empowerment Savour Kasukuwere as a shining example of empowerment in a recent BBC documentary.
Comment was not immediately available from either Murerwa or Chiyangwa. However, speculation was rife in Zimbabwe that the flamboyant Chiyangwa might be targeted again by his enemies in Zanu (PF), of which he was once Provincial Chairman and MP in Mugabe’s home province of Mashonaland West. He was removed after he joined a faction calling for Mugabe’s removal.
Mugabe’s relative Chiyangwa, a moderate who backs Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Zanu (PF) Karanga faction against Herbert Murerwa’s Zezuru faction headed by Retired General Solomon Mujuru was jailed for five months in 2004 on suspicion of spying for South Africa. Several of his associates were jailed but charges against the businessman were dropped.