Govt Withdraws Offer Letter From Terrence Mukupe
The Government has withdrawn an offer letter from Mt Olympus Chishawasha B Farm offered to Terrence Mukupe’s Farmtel Investments.
The 654-hectare farm is located in Goromonzi just after Manresa. It has been at the centre of a dispute between the farmers who have A1 permits and Mukupe whose company had earmarked the land for residential stands.
Mukupe had reportedly started the process of evicting the more than 40 farmers from the farm.
The A1 farmers have been living at the farm since the year 2000 and most had offer letters which were processed in 2010.
NewsDay reported that a high-powered ZANU PF delegation led by the provincial chairperson and National Housing and Social Amenities Minister Daniel Garwe on Saturday last week visited the area and told the farmers to remain on the piece of land. Garwe said:
The ZANU PF party is for the people, you the people you are the party. We are here armed with a document that says you are not going anywhere.
This is your land and we are saying, you belong here. We have informed even the police of the latest position, so fear not.
Garwe also told a ZANU PF provincial coordinating committee (PCC) meeting in Marondera yesterday that the Local Government ministry had cancelled the offer letter given to Mukupe.
Mukupe, who is a former Harare East legislator, was reportedly allocated the farm in 2016 by the Local Government and Public Works ministry.
He has been struggling to evict the farmers since 2019.
The former Deputy Finance Minister was recently sentenced to an effective three years in jail following his conviction for smuggling diesel into the country.
Responding to the revocation of Mukupe’s offer letter, political and social commentator Setfree Mafukidze warned the farmers that ZANU PF will eventually turn against them and give the land to someone else. He wrote on X:
The fact that the government had given an offer letter to Mukupe and suddenly turned around to call him a land baron because of the land they offered him legally proves that the government and ZANU PF are accomplices of illegal land distribution. Mukupe did not offer himself land, he was offered by the Government.
The A1 Farmers on that land should make other plans because the ZANU PF government is coming again for the same land but this time it will be offered to someone else who is just not Mukupe.
The unfortunate thing is most of these land beneficiaries are daft people who trust ZANU PF which had given away their allocated land in the first place.
More: Pindula News
