Land ownership row spills into High Court
By Peter Matambanadzo
A farmer who says he invested more than US$200 000 on land Government allocated him under its agrarian reforms is involved in a bitter row with a soldier who is allegedly threatening to takeover the property.
Mr Alexio Pasinyore Guruwo has approached the High Court for an order to stop the soldier, only identified as E Madimbu, from taking kicking him out of Danbury Park Farm Number 9 in Mashonaland Central.
In his urgent application filed yesterday, Mr Guruwo said: “I want the court to order that the first respondent (Guruwo) and all his employees and those claiming through him be ordered not to disturb or disrupt or interfere directly or indirectly and in whatsoever form in my way with my occupation of property.”
He said if the court delayed in granting the order, he would suffer irreparable harm.
Mr Guruwo averred that officials from the Lands and Rural Resettlement Ministry, who are cited as respondents along with the Mazowe district administrator, the provincial chief lands officer and the district lands officer, were bent on frustrating him.
He said since he benefited from land reforms in 2003, he has built a seven-roomed house, a storeroom, installed electricity and constructed a brick structure that houses a 100 KVA transformer on the 38 hectare farm.
He said he had installed a 5 000-litre water tank fed by an underground electrical cable and a 400-metre PVC pipe from a borehole.
The four horsepower submersible pump for the borehole is also his own. “I personally bought the equipment and also constructed a four roomed brick house for my workers and a cattle holding pen,” he said.
Mr Guruwo said in 2007 he hired a bulldozer to clear 22 ha of land, which he plans to put under crops this season.
“The massive developments which I made on my farm were so impressive that I applied for a 99-year lease.
“I have . . . injected between US$199 000 and US$300 000,” Mr Guruwo said.
He said in 2008, Mr Madimbu and his associates came to his farm threatening to evict him.
“Respondent is laboring under the impression that the developments were made on my property were not done by me (Mr Guruwo) but by the former owner,” he said.
Mr Guruwo claimed that Mr Madimbu threatened to shoot him if he did not surrender the farm.
He alleged that Mr Madimbu, who is his neighbour, has been indiscriminately cutting down trees and has reported the case but no action has been taken.
Meanwhile, another resettled farmer in Chegutu is challenging his eviction from a farm he was allocated under the land reform programme. Mr Timothy Shoko Mudavanhu is in the legal wrangle with the Lands Ministry and farming company, Bounchcap Investments (Pvt) Ltd.
He claims that he was allocated Lot 1 of Wantage and Lot 2 of Scherpers farms in Chegutu, Mashonaland West in 2001.
However, Mr Mudavanhu is seeking an urgent order to repossess the farm from Bounchcap Investments, which moved in on October 18, 2010.
He claimed that he was busy with land preparations when he was evicted from the property.
Justice George Chiweshe will preside over both cases.