The Zimbabwe Defence Forces has dismissed reports in some sections of the media that ZDF commander, General Philip Valerio Sibanda, invaded Goede Hoop Farm in Mazowe.
In a statement yesterday, ZDF director public relations
Colonel Teddy Ndlovu said the farm in question had not been allocated to
General Sibanda, who had never visited the farm. However, one of the four
sections of the farm had been divided into acquisition and had been allocated
to the army and the police as corporate entities.
“The Daily News and NewsDay on April 12, 2021 published
articles titled ‘Farmers sue army, police chiefs’ and ‘Matanga, Sibanda sued
for land grab.’ The articles claimed that the General PV Sibanda and
Commissioner General Godwin Matanga had been taken to court for grabbing Mazowe
Farm.
“The true facts of the matter are as detailed below:
“The Livaditakis family has been abusing the court
processes by repeatedly bringing frivolous applications based on the same
allegations and arguments since 2017, each time thereafter abandoning their
court applications. Their case has already been decided by the court on March
25, 2021 and dismissed since the Livaditakis failed to prosecute their case as
they were in default,” he said.
Colonel Ndlovu said the family has now resorted to
newspapers to pursue their baseless claims and in the process tarnishing the
image and person of General Sibanda, the Commander Zimbabwe Defence Forces and
the Zimbabwe Defence Forces as an organisation.
He added that the fact of the matter is that the land in
question is state land in terms of Section 27 of the Constitution. In pursuit
of its constitutional mandate, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries,
Water and Rural Resettlement, subdivided the land into four subdivisions.
One of the subdivisions measuring 478 hectares was
allocated to the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA), and not General Sibanda as the
report made the public to believe, and the other subdivision was allocated to
the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), and not Commissioner General Matanga as an
individual, while the remaining portion was allocated to the Livaditakis
family, the family at the centre of the incorrect reports.
“All these allocations were in terms of the Gazetted Land
(Consequential Provisions) Act. Contrary to what the public is being made to
believe by the story in the said publication, the Livaditakis family do not
have any documents to show that they have title to or ownership to the land in
question. They only have an offer letter for the sub-division allocated to them
and this document does not confer rights to ownership of the land in question.
“Whilst the Livaditakis family’s argument is based on the
Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement(BIPPA), it must be
noted that in terms of the law, BIPPA does not affect the legality of
compulsory acquisition of land under the land reform programme.
“The fact that the reporters never bothered to verify the
story with the Commander Zimbabwe Defence Forces, the ZNA or the Ministry of
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement before publishing
it reflects badly on their basic professionalism. It also reflects an ongoing
sinister agenda to portray the ZDF and its command as unprofessional, lawless
and unruly.”
Under BIPPA agreements land can still be acquired, but
compensation agreements are different. Colonel Ndlovu said the story in
question is defamatory and violates the personal integrity of General Sibanda
as it contains falsehoods which purports that; the offer letter was issued
to him in his personal capacity and that
he invaded Goede Hoop Farm in Mazowe, Mashonaland Central in 2018 and demanded
that the family vacates the premises as ownership has been transferred to them.
He said the story claims that General Sibanda “stormed the
farm and told me that I need to leave the farm as the farm was now theirs” when
in fact General Sibanda has never set foot at the said farm and never had any
such conversation with anyone from Livaditakis family. Herald
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