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Cabinet Gives Back To White Farmer Coffee Estate Fraudulently Taken Away From Him By Minister Of State
21 October 2020
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Paul Nyathi

Perrance Shiri

The now-cancelled allocation of a portion of Farfield Coffees Estate in Chipinge to Mr Rememberance Mbudzana, the son of Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution Dr Ellen Gwaradzimba, was made on the basis of a letter by the minister, the chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement, Gokwe-Nembudziya legislator, Justice Mayor Wadyajena (Zanu PF), said yesterday.

The portfolio committee, after hearing evidence, said the then Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Perrance Shiri, who issued the offer letter for the farm, had been wrongly informed that there was a resolution from the Provincial Lands Committee.

The committee was concerned over a letter that Minister Gwaradzimba wrote to Minister Shiri and said this was irregular given that the Provincial Lands Committee had not yet met to deliberate on the allocation of the farm to Mr Mbudzana.

Wadyajena said Minister Shiri issued the offer letter based on misrepresentation by Minister Gwaradzimba when she wrote a letter purporting that the decision to give Mr Mbudzana the farm was a lands committee recommendation when she had unilaterally made such a decision as the lands committee chairman, as she admitted in her evidence to the Portfolio Committee, saying she intended to regularise the position later.

Acting Provincial Lands Officer Mr Clifford Mukoyi had told the committee in yesterday’s meeting that they did not meet as a Provincial Lands Committee to deliberate on the issue.

He admitted amid grilling from legislators that Minister Gwaradzimba could have been in conflict of interest when she presided over the allocation of a piece of land to her son without the involvement of the Provincial Lands Committee.

Cabinet has since resolved the ownership dispute after it ruled that the initial owner, Mr Richard Le Vieux, stays put at the farm and continues commercial production while alternative land is sought for Mr Mbudzana.

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Extracted From State Media