Don’t mistreat Domboshava settlers
EDITOR - Domboshava Rural, under Chief Chinamhora, has since the 1990s developed into a semi-urban area.
The Harare-Domboshava migrations were mainly caused by economic hardships as people failed to get affordable residential stands in Harare.
The absolute truth is that these masses did not randomly and illegally mushroom as squatters in Domboshava as is chorused in some sectors of the area’s traditional leadership.
Being a caretaker chief (musarapavana), taking over from his late father, Chief Chinamhora must understand protocol as enshrined in the Traditional Leaders Act.
He must stop dancing to the tune of his court personnel who have an axe to grind with Harare-Domboshava migrants.
According to the guiding Act, the village head is the one mandated with allocation of land to home-seekers.
The headman acts as an overseer in a given area with a number of village heads as his subordinates.
The chief is overall in charge and cases are brought to his court from the headman’s court as his subordinate.
Given the protocol ladder, it is both surprisingly and alarming that villagers are directly served with summons from the chief’s office, by-passing his subordinates.
In his short stint in office, Chief Chinamhora has clamped down on the new settlers from urban areas.
More than 300 summons have been issued for varying offences against the new settlers in a period of just 18 months.
The most common offence being “settling in the area before greeting the chief” (kuombera mambo), even if you came to the area before he was chief.
We have bought land legally, but we are called by a derogatory term, “vauyi”.
The so-called originals stir up land disputes and report direct to the chief by-passing his subordinates - the village head and the headman.
The chief passes predetermined judgments in favour of the “originals”.
Even more painful is that the chief does not care about the large sums of money council raises in land levies.
I therefore call upon the President of the Chiefs’ Council and other relevant authorities to take this issue seriously and intervene before the “vauyi” time bomb explodes in Domboshawa.
Tired Muuyi, Domboshava