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BY MOSE MATENGA
Malunga is the son of the late national hero Zapu, Sydney Malunga. The GOVERNMENT torched a storm after seizing a farm owned by three people, including the executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa), Siphosami Malunga, with critics claiming Malunga was the target of human rights abuses.
According to an acquisition notice published in the Government Gazette by Land Minister Anxious Masuka, the government will own the 553 hectare farm in Nyamandlovu, North Matabeleland province, to resettle landless families.
Masuka published the notice in the Government Gazette last December, but the Malunga family say they only learned about it last week following a call from a Land Ministry official in Bulawayo.
The Minister of Lands said the farm was compulsorily acquired for the purpose of agricultural relocation under Article 72 (2) of the Constitution which allows the government to seize land without compensation except for improvements.
Malunga said the takeover of the farm, which the family bought about four years ago, was illegal and would be contested. He also insinuated that the move was a punishment for his human rights work with Osisa.
Today we got a call from Mr Dodzi at the land office in Bulawayo to tell us that the government has acquired our private farm and tomorrow they are coming to reattach it and give it to the people to whom they have allocated it.
This is not about land reform and we will fight it by all means. The farm is completely privately owned by three black people and we have only seen the Government Gazette and Notice of Acquisition published on December 18 for the first time today after the Lands Officer gave us the number and told us to go to the government printers, Malunga tweeted.
But the secretary of the Ministry of Information, Ndavaningi Mangwana, said the farm was state-owned.
The Malunga Farm Facts: In 2004, the government acquired a farm that belonged to a Mr. Swindells who then left for New Zealand. The title deeds remain in his name. An Eddie Warambwa rented the farm from Swindells until 2010 when he passed away.
In 2017, Sipho Malunga bought out a Swindells company for US $ 33,000. It is clear that the 500 hectare farm had already been acquired by the government in 2004 was not part of this transaction. A stand, not a farm, is purchased for US $ 33,000. To say that the government is taking a Malunga farm is incorrect.
In 2010, Raj Modi (Deputy Minister of Industry) bought the farm at an auction for US $ 250,000 as part of the Warambwa Estate Debt, but discovered that it was already of state land and abandoned the purchase. An alleged purchase in 2017 does not dislodge the government acquisition in 2004, Mangwana tweeted.
But Malunga immediately retaliated, accusing Mangwana of lying.
You lie shamelessly. We own the farm and hold the title to the property. It really is that simple. We know why the government took the farm. I came here just to say this. The rest, we will say in the appropriate spaces.
The government has been accused of battling critics by taking over their farms.
Former Minister Savior Kasukuwere is fighting to have a veteran evicted from his farm in Mazowe and accuses the authorities of doing nothing despite a court ruling.
Recently, youths from Zanu PF invaded a Mutorashanga farm owned by war veteran Frederick Mutanda, who they accused of undermining President Emmerson Mnangagwa by filing a High Court petition challenging his extension of the judge’s tenure. Chief Luke Malabas when he reached retirement age.
Follow Moses on Twitter @ mmatenga
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