Grace Mugabe aide kicks white dairy farmer off farm
Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe’s aide, Olga Bungu, has acquired a court order to kick white dairy farmer Gillian Munn off a farm in Goromonzi.
The Goromonzi Magistrates’ Court last week gave Munn 45 days to vacate the farm, which means she will have had to have done so by November 26.
Munn has been staving off pressure from Bungu – a deputy police commissioner – to vacate the 209-hectare Mashonganyika Farm, which is about 50km to the east of the capital Harare, for the past five months.
The farm produces over 10,000 litres of milk a month and has around 115 hectares of maize.
Munn said the court ruled that the dairy permit she had was “not valid” since it had not been issued by the Ministry of Lands and that she had been “illegally residing at the farm” for the past 13 years.
Gillian co-owned the farm with her former husband Allan Munn before they divorced and he went to France.
Meanwhile, another white commercial farmer also risks losing his farm after Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement minister Douglas Mombeshora approached the Bulawayo High Court to evict Michael Norman Conoly from Boxwell Farm in Matabeleland South province.
Mombeshora filed at the High Court last Tuesday that he was an authority in whom powers over all prime lands were vested and that he was the watchdog in the administration of the Land Acquisition Act, hence his seeking to evict Conoly.
The Lands minister submitted he had also found beneficiaries of the land reform programme for the farm and had even issued them with offer letters.
“In terms of the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act in furtherance of the land reform programme, the plaintiff lawfully acquired for resettlement the farm from the defendant, the former owner,” he made submissions through the Attorney-General’s Office.
“Despite demand and despite the land having been lawfully acquired, the defendant has failed or refused or neglected to vacate the farm and make way for the said new offer letter holders. Defendant is neither an offer letter holder, nor does he have any legal basis to remain on the farm without the consent and authority of the plaintiff.” - ANA
(File photo: Gallo Images)