Massive land scam rocks Insiza

News
INSIZA Rural District Council (RDC) in Matabeleland South has been rocked by a massive land scam with several villagers taking their cases to court after they were recently ordered to vacate their allocated plots on allegations they had been illegally settled by officials in return for bribes.

INSIZA Rural District Council (RDC) in Matabeleland South has been rocked by a massive land scam with several villagers taking their cases to court after they were recently ordered to vacate their allocated plots on allegations they had been illegally settled by officials in return for bribes.

BY SILAS NKALA

It is understood that some 17 villagers under Chief Ndumiso Majahana Khumalo were kicked out of their plots by the Insiza RDC after it was reportedly discovered that the land had been allocated illegally.

The affected villagers — Shem Mathe and 16 others – through the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights’ Nontokozo Dube Tachiona, last week sought an urgent High Court order barring authorities from demolishing structures or evicting them from the land.

Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha granted the order.

“Respondents are barred from demolishing any of the homesteads built by applicants on the stands allocated to them by Insiza Rural District Council or any other allocating authority otherwise other than in accordance with the law,” Kamocha ruled.

“Respondents are barred from evicting applicants from their homesteads in any manner unless authorised in accordance with the law.”

In their founding affidavit villagers submitted that they all reside at ward 22 in Insiza District under Chief Majahana. They said in 2013, Insiza Rural District Council through its CEO documented the occupancy of the stands in which they were settled and upon which they built homesteads. They attached proof of payments made to the council when they were issued with certificates of occupancy.

They said starting in July this year, Chief Majahana acting in common purpose with the CEO, district administrator and the provincial administrator and other council employees accused all villagers of buying stands from some unnamed Zanu PF people.

“They demanded that we admit to have bought the stands threatening to evict us from our homesteads,” villagers submitted. “We denied the accusations because although most of us are indeed Zanu PF supporters, we never bought the stands. We were resettled like all resettled Zimbabweans under the resettlement programme, free of charge.”

Villagers said after submitting responses, the chief got enraged and mobilised villagers who were resettled before them to denounce newcomers and label them as people who bought land from corrupt Zanu PF officials.

“We denied these allegations and insisted that if the sixth respondent (Chief) knows of any Zanu PF official who received money from us, he must expose that official and not force us to point fingers at anyone. We do not know any Zanu PF official who sold land to any of us,” villagers submitted.

They said the chief verbally abused them ordering them to demolish structures and leave ward 22, but they demanded written notice of eviction from him which was never made available to them.

“We have a right to peaceful occupation of homesteads and cannot be forced to vacate or demolish them other than by operation of the law that is by court order. Thus we pray for an order in terms of the draft order,” they submitted.

Meanwhile, a Zanu PF official from Insiza convicted on two counts of illegally selling rural resettlement land to desperate villagers has been slapped with 210 hours of unpaid work.

Clifford Chifadze Machona (60), the ruling party ward 22 chairperson, collected between $300 and $500 from several villagers before illegally allocating them resettlement plots in the Lochard Resettlement area, Insiza.

He denied charges when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Merilyn Mutshina, but was convicted at the close of the State case.

In his defence, he had insisted that he was authorised to distribute land in the area from 2010 to 2013.