HERALD
12 March 2010
Govt property in SA untouchable, says minister
White former commercial farmers cannot attach Government properties in South Africa for compensation as all of them are protected by diplomatic protocols, a Cabinet minister has said.
Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, however, urged the former commercial farmers to come to Zimbabwe and claim compensation for the improvements made on farms through the proper channels instead of lodging appeals outside the country.
Pretoria High Court judge Justice Garth Rabbie last month upheld a 2009 Sadc Tribunal judgment saying Government should compensate the former commercial farmers and the ruling could be enforced in South Africa.
The farmers thought that this opened a way for them to attach Zimbabwe Government properties in South Africa. On Monday, they said they had identified 11 properties including four houses in Cape Town, which they would attach to “recover” about R150 000 owed in legal costs incurred for the Pretoria case.
However, Minister Chinamasa said the litigation’s only purpose was political grandstanding. “The Constitution of Zimbabwe is clear on the issue of compensation. The farmers must come to Zimbabwe and claim compensation for the improvements made on the land.
“The litigation is meant to attract world attention. Can they really get enough money from attaching four houses in Cape Town?
“Any judgment cannot be enforced and it is a matter of what the South Government would do to protect our properties there.
“They cannot touch any of our properties because they are under diplomatic immunity,” he said. The farmers’ case, Minister Chinamasa said, was “wasteful and vindictive”.
“There is no real intention to recover anything from Government. The farmers have remained unrepentant and this case will not get them anywhere.
“If they think they can get anything through South African courts, they are just daydreaming,” he said.
A senior South African government official yesterday challenged the farmers to prove that the targeted properties belonged to Zimbabwe.
Another official in Zimbabwe’s Embassy in Pretoria added that he did not know about the properties the farmers were claiming.
“If the properties they are talking about are not attached to our embassy, who owns the said houses?
“These could be properties that belonged to the Ian Smith regime and we never claimed them after independence,” he said.
Government has indicated any such properties are also protected by the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements signed between Zimbabwe and South Africa in November last year.