A RETIRED colonel and Zipra war veteran has accused the
Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, Retired Air Marshal
Perrance Shiri of taking a farm he has occupied for 17 years on tribal grounds
and giving it to Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe.
Rtd Col Protarcius Ngwenya, a Zipra veteran who went under
the moniker Comrade Richard Mataure during the 1970s war of liberation has
written to Shiri, copied to President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his deputy Kembo
Mohadi alleging the plot to take over his farm on tribal grounds.
But the two Cabinet ministers have dismissed the
allegations, saying they followed normal procedure. Shiri accused Ngwenya of
subletting the farm to a white farmer.
In his letter, Ngwenya said he was disheartened and shocked
by the persistence and frantic efforts by the two ministers to remove him from
Collingwood Farm, also called Southwell Farm, in Mashonaland Central on tribal grounds.
“I’m disheartened and shocked by your persistence and
frantic efforts of tribally trying (sic) removing me from Mashonaland again
with a pretext of farm downsizing,” Ngwenya said.
Ngwenya said in 2002 he was allocated Mashona-Kop Farm in Mashonaland
East but was chased away by a former minister (name supplied) and told look for
a farm in Matabeleland.
“You my own comrade have now joined the fray. For the past
few months you have been planning to dislodge me from Southwell Farm, first you
tried to smuggle in (a named Zimplats senior executive) when you sent your
Flight Lieutenant Madzvamuse with (sic) pretext of negotiating an agro-joint
venture project with me,” Ngwenya said.
“I have been on Collingwood Farm for 17 years, I fully
developed an underground irrigation of above 4 300 metres plus have installed a
1 800 HP pumping capacity. This is the infrastructure ministers Shiri and
Kazembe are targeting to cherry pick (sic),” he told NewsDay.
“Cde minister, Southwell is my only liberation gain just
like you having your east of Bindura farm. Any effort (sic) like what you’re
about to do would be very painful to me, my family and other comrades from the
revolution.”
Ngwenya said he had 115 heads of cattle plus goats, while
all the dry pasture was taken by grazing land and the dairy herd of 500 cows is
about to be restored under the ministry’s restoration programme. He further
said the arable land left from 400 hectares would be 200 and this would be
divided into horticulture export land and general cropping.
“Cde minister (sic) hatred should end among comrades. I was
meant to believe you were non-tribal and not harbouring ancient Zanla-Zipra
primitive animosity. Now you have left me baffled and surprised. As a senior
commander of our revolution I urge you to put a bit of sensitivity to the
ongoing tribalism in our country,” Ngwenya further said.
“Any injustice (sic) exacted on me by you, minister Shiri
because of the history will be a further indelible scar like the many
historical scars that remain haunting our people till this day.”
Contacted for a comment, Kazembe said he was allocated the
farm officially by the Lands ministry.
“I was allocated a farm officially and procedurally by the
Ministry of Lands,” Kazembe said without further elaboration on the role of a
police base he has set on the farm.
Shiri dismissed the allegations of tribal land grab, saying
Ngwenya was a beneficiary of the land reform programme and the farm was 656, 79
hectares but only a maximum of 80 hectares was being utilised.
The minister said of the 80ha being utilised, 60ha was
being used by a white farmer who he said had entered into some gentlemen’s
agreement with Ngwenya which was not endorsed by his ministry.
“In fact Ngwenya is a beneficiary of the land reform
programme and that he was allocated Southwell Farm, measuring 656,79ha in the
area of Concession, Mashonaland Central Province. The farm is almost all arable
but only a maximum of about 80ha out of 656,79ha was being utilised for
cropping. Over and above that there is a herd of about 90 cattle. Of the said
80ha farming operations at the farm, 60ha was being used by some white farmer
who had entered into some form of gentlemen’s agreement,” Shiri said.
“From the aforementioned, two things come to the fore,
first the farm was grossly underutilised. Secondly the farm was above the
maximum allowable farm size for that area. The area where the farm is located
falls in ecological region two and at the time of downsizing the maximum
allowable farm size for that area was 400ha.”
The minister, however, could not say why Kazembe abandoned
his previously allocated 130ha Klein Copje Farm near Blackforby, which is about
45km from the contentious farm. Newsday
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