By A Correspondent- Gweru businessman Douglas Makwande, who claims to be very close to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, has clashed with the Gweru City Council after converting the premises of Zimbabwe Glass Holdings (Zimglass) into a cattle pen for his 100 herds.

The businessman claims he acquired the premises for US$22 million, although his workers strongly challenge this.

Urban farming remains an offence in the Gweru and indeed in many cities and towns in the country.

According to media reports, the giant 10-hectare premises located along Bristol Road in Gweru are now used as grazing and a cattle pen for Kwande’s cattle.

However, the businessman’s decision to turn the premises of a lucrative glass-making venture into a pen could pass for mockery on the government’s thrust to reinject life into a comatose industrial sector that has taken a good battering from a sagging economy and the devastating effects of Covid-19 in the recent past.

Kwande bought the firm from the state-run Industrial Development Corporation.