The Insider - Masunda says case with Nkomo should go to trial

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The Insider - November 2007

Masunda says case with Nkomo should go to trial

Safari operator Langton Masunda, who is currently locked in a land ownership dispute with ZANU-PF national chairman and Speaker of Parliament John Nkomo, says the case should go to trial so that imperfections in the land reform allocation system can be exposed and ironed out once and for all.

Nkomo is seeking to evict Masunda from a farm in Gwayi which hosts Jijima Lodge through a summary judgment with the High Court in Bulawayo. He says that the lodge, currently being operated by Masunda, is on his piece of land.

Masunda and Nkomo have been locked in court battles over the same piece of land for the past two years. Masunda says Nkomo is on a fishing expedition and is judge-shopping because he has previously sought to evict him without success.

He says he was allocated subdivision 1 of Volunteer farms 47, 48 and 49 in 2002.At the time he was advised by the land officers that the farm extended up to Jijima Safari Camp.

Masunda was allocated the same piece of land with three others— Zenzo Ncube, Sithabiso Gama and Thembelani Ncube. Gama and Ncube confirmed Masunda’s claim in a written statement that when they were given the farm they were informed that it extended to Jijima Safari Camp and as such they started rebuilding the camp which had been run down.

Masunda argues that if Nkomo was allocated the same piece of land in 2003 as he claims, then his (Masunda’s) application has priority by date of application as he was allocated the land a year earlier.

Nkomo says he was offered the land by then Minister of Lands Joseph Made. But the offer letter he is currently using was issued by current Minister of Lands Didymus Mutasa.

Masunda queries why if Nkomo was allocated the land in 2003 as he claims the offer letter for Lugo Ranch he has produced in court is dated 20 September 2007, well after Nkomo sued Masunda for eviction. If the offer letter existed, and Nkomo lost the original as he claims, he asks, why couldn’t the government simply give him a duplicate?

He also says that Nkomo should not rely on diagrams provided by the surveyor-general or on records at the Deeds office because the land allocation exercise ignored and cut across diagrams in the surveyor general’s office.

“New subdivisions were created which subdivisions are not recorded in the surveyor-general’s office,” he argues. “The land reform exercise in novel in many respects. It is without known precedents in the history of this country. It requires many explanations as to how the allocations are made. For instance four people were allocated three farms. Who then owns which portion as there is no indication that the beneficiaries own undivided shares.”

The previous owner of the farms, Aubrey James Chatham, said in a statement in 2005 that Volunteer Farms 47, 48 and 49 which were then known as Lugo Ranch were operating as one unit and had one title deed. They belonged to his parents. Lugo extension was owned by his father and had its own title deed.

He said there were no visible beacons or boundaries between Volunteer Farms and Lugo extension. But Chatham says that Jijima Safari Camp and some bee-hives were on Lugo extension.

Masunda says for the guidance of the courts and the public it is necessary that evidence be led explaining the workings of the new land allocation system.

“There are several pitfalls in the system. The fact that the responsible minister found it necessary to amend the property description is but one example of the gaps in the system,” he argues. “A trial would expose, for the benefit of all concerned the imperfections in the system, laudable as the policy may be.”

“This is certainly not an open and shut case. It has just too many holes which hopefully a trial may cover and there would hopefully thereafter be a certain and transparent policy,” he says.

Posted- 21 November 2007

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