Muchinguri, ex-MP clash over resort

ENVIRONMENT, Water and Climate minister Oppah Muchinguri has been sucked into a nasty land ownership wrangle between Manicaland-based Mapari Rest Resorts and the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks).

BY KENNETH NYANGANI

This followed recent alleged attempts by top ZimParks officials to evict Mapari Rest Resort director and former MDC-T MP Edmore Marima from the property.

On Friday, Marima’s firm, Kupuka Hospitality Limited t/a Mapari Rest Resorts, filed an urgent chamber application at the High Court, through its lawyer Passmore Nyakureba, barring ZimParks from unlawfully evicting him.

They cited the ZimParks Manicaland regional manager, ZimParks and Muchinguri as respondents.

“We filed an urgent chamber application barring ZimParks from attempting to evict my client from his premises.

They are attempting to evict them along with eight other employees. We are reliably informed that a senior
(ZimParks) board member is angling to take over the resort,’’ Nyakureba said.

“They have deployed almost 15 rangers with most of them armed with guns. Yesterday (Sunday), my client’s children were locked outside the gate after they had gone outside to buy bread, this is unfair.

“We are hoping that our urgent chamber application will be heard this week after we filed it on December 30, but because of the holiday the matter was not set down.”

Part of the application read: “On December 21, 2016, the first respondent issued the applicant with a threat to unlawfully seize its business operations at Mapari Resorts by December 31, 2016 using force, and hand it over to the second respondent on January 1, 2017.

“The respondent’s conduct is in violation of the applicant’s right to property and the director and employees’ right to freedom from arbitrary eviction as envisioned in sections 71 and 74 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe respectively. The director (Marima) and employees are currently living in fear and are at the mercy of the first respondent.”