Prosecutors
from the Special Anti-Corruption Unit (SACU) in the Office of the President and
Cabinet have secured trial dates for 21 cases involving alleged land barons,
who include politicians and some senior Harare City Council employees.
The trials kick
off next week, while more cases are expected to be allocated trial dates when
courts resume normal operations after a review of the current national
lockdown. An internal SACU memorandum secured by our Harare Bureau shows that
most of the defendants will answer to charges of fraud and criminal abuse of
office as defined under the Criminal Law (Codification Reform) Act.
SACU head Mr
Tabani Mpofu yesterday promised a “bloody month of war” in the courts for land
barons.
A new special
prosecutorial team under the office of the Prosecutor-General has since been
established to handle the cases.
“We have got
about 41 active cases of corruption, most of which involve the parcelling of
land illegally by land barons. Out of all those cases, 29 have been given trial
dates. What this means is that police investigations are complete and
prosecution has considered the docket and came to the conclusion that there is
enough evidence to prosecute and convict. At SACU we give ourselves only two
weeks from the time of arrest to complete the docket for the allocation of a
trial date.
So we don’t let
matters linger. What we want to do is show the public that when we arrest
people, we do so to get these people in court for trial with minimum delay.”
A trial is a
structured court process where prosecutors present facts of a case before a
magistrate, who then delivers a ruling on whether an accused person is guilty
or not. It can only commence after police have completed all investigations and
after the prosecutor is reasonably satisfied that there is adequate proof to
secure a conviction.
Former Harare
Mayor Herbert Gomba, who is among the individuals to face trial this month,
will begin answering to charges of criminal abuse of office for allegedly
fraudulently allocating State land to Taringana Housing Cooperative on February
16. Prominent land developer Felix Munyaradzi will be put in the dock on 24
February.
Senior council
manager Matthew Marara, who is facing charges of corruptly parcelling out
residential stands in his previous post of housing director; and Aaron
Tayerera, the city’s acting chief clerical officer, will both be in court
starting 24 February. Munyaradzi Bowa, who is the city’s principal land
surveyor, will stand trial on 16 February.
The city’s
director housing and community services, Addmore Nhekairo, will be in court on
3 March. Mr Mpofu said most of the trials were initially scheduled for January
but were delayed on account of the introduction of the level four lockdown.
“I want the
public to know that we are giving trial dates and February is going to be the
month of a bloody war against corruption. There are some trials which were
scheduled for this month that will be affected by the practice directive issued
by the Chief Justice and those ones will be given dates immediately after the
expiry of the lockdown this month.”
Earlier this month,
Chief Justice Luke Malaba issued Practice Direction 3 of 2021 regulating the
operations of courts during the extension of the level four national lockdown.
The directive moved all pending criminal matters by at least a month. The
filing of new cases, process, documents, pleadings and papers was also
suspended until 15 February.
SACU says
accused persons facing corruption charges were abusing court processes to delay
trial. “We cannot control court processes, because there are processes and
procedure that we cannot short-circuit.
“All we can do
is finalise investigations and get matters into court. However, we have also
noted a trend whereby our High Court appears too eager to release accused
persons on bail.”
Accused
persons, Mr Mpofu added, were abusing the High Court’s leniency to delay the
commencement of trials.
“Their lawyers
make long and frivolous applications, which they take to the High Court and
then the Supreme Court just to delay the process. This then bogs us down and we
cannot fight corruption like that. We are not saying that everyone should be
denied bail — no! We are saying not everyone should be given bail.”
In a statement,
Prosecutor-General Mr Kumbirai Hodzi said the national lockdown was delaying
completion of cases before the courts.
“The
Prosecutor-General has also put a special prosecutorial team to deal with the
prosecutions of land barons. Currently, there are a number of land baron cases
that are on remand in the courts. Prosecutions have been delayed in most
criminal cases, including high-profile cases owing to the Covid-19 pandemic
that has slowed down prosecutions in the courts.”
Government has
undertaken to fast-track the prosecution of all land barons and facilitate
compensation of home-seekers who lost out to land barons and corrupt council
officials. President Mnangagwa on Thursday issued a directive for implementing
corrective measures to bring sanity to local authorities that had been allowing
illegal construction of houses on wetlands and without supporting
infrastructure such as water and roads. Sunday Mail
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