Police have arrested two suspects in connection with the invasion of Umvutcha Farm on the outskirts of Bulawayo.
The property has been in dispute for years after the
Ministry of Lands allegedly placed an erroneous caveat on the land.
The family lawyer, Bruce Masamvu of Masamvu & Da
Silva-Gustavo Law Chambers, confirmed the developments to CITE.
“Police said they have arrested at least two suspects who
were part of the crowd that was trying to evict the family from their property.
They said they are still carrying out investigations to find out who is being
the invasion,” Masamvu said.
The family owns Umvutcha Farm, where they do market
gardening, supplying numerous supermarkets in Bulawayo with vegetables.
The disputes over the property date back several years
after the land was erroneously declared agricultural land instead of municipal
land.
Court documents on the property, cite Alister Michael
Fletcher as the applicant and Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water
and Rural Development, Registrar of Deeds and Robert Njanji as respondents,
showing that several court applications have been made to the property various
judgments have been passed.
According to the documents, the property falls under
municipal land and must be governed as per provisions of Statutory Instrument
(SI) 212 of 1999 but due to the caveats, the owner of the land was stripped of
all rights to conduct any form of transactions on the property.
The SI reads that: “Whereas by paragraph (b) of subsection
2 of section 4 of the Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15], it is provided that,
at any time after the establishment of a council the President may, subject to
this Act, by proclamation in the Gazette and with the consent of the council
alter the boundaries or re-divide the council area into any number of wards,
create one or more additional wards, alter or abolish one or more wards or
abolish the division of the council area into wards;
“Now, therefore, under and by virtue of the powers vested
in the President I do hereby. (a) alter the boundaries of the Bulawayo City
Council area by the addition of Umvutsha, Reigate, Umguza Agricultural Lots,
Umguza Estate, Southern Portion of Nondwane to the ‘said council area”
The court documents show that the High Court upheld an
application made by Fletcher, to have the ministry remove caveats imposed on
the property.
According to the documents, Njanji, cited as the second
respondent, admitted to the court that the caveats had been erroneously applied
and endorsed hence there was a need to remove them.
The documents further show that the Supreme Court ruled
that the High Court had no jurisdiction to hear the matter and therefore could
not have ruled for the removal of the caveats.
Another application was then made to challenge the ruling
of the High Court, citing that the ruling violates the property owner’s rights
as enshrined in the Constitution. CITE
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