Land grab looms for Grace Mugabe

Government takes aim at former first lady’s 16 farms

● Zimbabwe’s government is moving ahead with plans to repossess 15 farms from former first lady Grace Mugabe.

A land audit by the ministry discovered that Grace has 16 farms in her name. She acquired them during her husband Robert’s long rule, which came to a dramatic end in November 2017.

Early this year, the ministry briefed President Emmerson Mnangagwa about Grace’s vast land holdings, something he confirmed in a radio interview with state-controlled Capital FM this month.

Now, the ministry is seeking to table its resolutions on the matter before the cabinet.

“We will be making recommendations to cabinet so that the other 15 farms are either taken by the state or are given to landless people,” deputy lands minister Douglass Karoro told the Sunday Times.

“We are not targeting anyone. If Grace has 16 farms, the nation has to know.”

Most of the farms are in the fertile Mazowe valley, north of Harare, where the Mugabes have a state-of-the-art dairy and yoghurt factory, and where Grace runs an orphanage.

The Zanu-PF Youth League has given the former first lady an ultimatum to choose one farm and relinquish the rest.

“We are demanding that she chooses one and the other 15 be subdivided into 10ha plots for youths within two weeks,” said deputy secretary Lewis Matutu.

The youth league also put pressure on lands minister Perrance Shiri to allocate land to its members because they had not benefited from the chaotic “fast-track” land reform that started at the turn of the century and left at least 4,500 white commercial farmers landless.

Shiri promised to allocate the youth land to address their grievances. “I am aware that most youths are not beneficiaries of the land reform programme,” he said in an address delivered by one of his deputies, Vangelis Peter Haritatos. “Let me assure you that concerted efforts are under way to come up with an all-inclusive youth- and gender-sensitive land policy.”

Zanu-PF sources said party members were divided on how to deal with Grace’s land. “She’s not the only one with multiple farms. Most senior officials have numerous farms, so if this goes ahead, they too will have to let go of theirs,” said one.

“Another thing is that, embarrassing her like that is an insult to Robert Mugabe’s legacy. Despite being removed from power, there’s a lot of goodwill for him, and stripping his family or those associated with him of property won’t go down well.”

Karoro said the targeted farms are not part of former president Mugabe’s known properties, and he said he could not comment on how many farms he owns.

Since her husband’s overthrow, Grace has seen open resistance at some of the farms she owns.

Last year, farmers Adonia Makombe, Sahungwe Hungwe and Nyika Chifamba — who were evicted from a farm in Mazowe in 2009 to pave the way for the former first family’s Gushungo holdings company to seize them — filed court papers challenging their expulsion from the land.

The imminent loss of most of her farms is the latest in a series of blows Grace has sustained since her husband was ousted.

Six weeks ago, she was accused of attacking an employee at the family’s home in 2017. She also faces an arrest warrant in SA for her alleged assault on a female model in Johannesburg the same year.

Papers filed in Zimbabwe’s high court by lawyers for Shupikai Chiroodza allege that Grace used her fists and then her shoe in a prolonged attack that left Chiroodza’s face pouring with blood.

Grace allegedly accused Chiroodza of “milking” her husband because she had accepted a cash wedding gift from him.

Chiroodza was a government employee working at the Mugabes’ private Blue Roof mansion in Harare when the alleged attack took place in March 2017.

In her court application, Chiroodza says: “I was terrified. She removed her shoe and continued assaulting me with it and blood started gushing out of my forehead, mouth and nose. The assault continued for about 20 minutes.”

In August 2017, Grace allegedly attacked Gabrielle Engels with an electrical extension cord at an upmarket hotel in Johannesburg where the Mugabes’ two sons were staying. SA granted her diplomatic immunity, allowing her to hurriedly leave the country, but a court later scrapped that ruling.

If Grace has 16 farms, the nation has to know Douglass Karoro Zimbabwe’s deputy lands minister