Mohadi collides with the law

News
HOME Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi and his family are yet to remove a perimeter fence they illegally erected around some Beitbridge villagers’ farming plots.

HOME Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi and his family are yet to remove a perimeter fence they illegally erected around some Beitbridge villagers’ farming plots, placing them on a collision course with the law, as they are in direct defiance of a High Court order compelling them to do so. Richard Muponde, Senior Court REPORTER

The villagers’ lawyer Matshobane Ncube of Phulu and Ncube Legal Practitioners, confirmed on Tuesday that the order had not been complied with.

“The challenge we have is that the matter in which we are seeking them to be declared in contempt of court, has not been set down for hearing,” he said.

“They are definitely in contempt of court, as there is a High Court order demanding that they remove that fence.”

If they are found in contempt of court, the minister and his family risk a 90-day imprisonment.

The Mohadis were ordered to remove the fence after four villagers — Given Mbedzi, Soforia Ndou, Aifheli Nare and Kumbirai Ncube — won a High Court case, where they were fighting over ownership of the land.

In February 2012, Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha ordered Mohadi, his wife Tambudzani, son Campbell (Jr) and two of their farm employees to remove the illegal fence from the disputed land.

But the Zanu PF minister’s family defied the order, while police, who incidentally fall under Mohadi’s ministry, declined to accompany the Deputy Sheriff to pull down the fence.

This prompted the villagers’ lawyer Ncube to file a contempt of court charge against the Mohadis and Beitbridge police commander Chief Superintendent Lawrence Chinhengo last December.

Mohadi last year lost a series of High Court cases.