Brickstone directors forge offer letters, swindles...

Brickstone directors forge offer letters, swindles 52 residential stands from HCC

Munyaradzi Mashiri

Zim Now Court Correspondent

Brickstone Builders and Contractors Private Limited directors have been arraigned before the courts accused of defrauding the Harare City Council 52 stands.

Lilan Chitanga, 52, and Spencer Mabeka, 45, appeared before magistrate Stanford Mambanje at the Harare Magistrates' Courts facing fraud allegations.

They were remanded in custody.

The complainant in this matter is City of Harare Housing Director and Community Services.

The State, through prosecutor Mercy Masamvi, alleges that in May 2002, the City of Harare approved the subdivision of a portion of land in Belvedere Ridge View into 52 residential stands under layout plan TP2F 2219/3 but this plan was not implemented to date.

In 2021, it is alleged that the two allegedly duped City of Harare by allocating the land after they forged a distribution letter for approval of layout plan TP2F2291/3 dated April 20, 2021 and, an offer letter for land under layout plan TP2F2219/3 dated April 22, 2021.

Both documents were purported to have been authored and signed by Nathan Magadizire the Principal Director of Physical Planning in the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.

The court was informed that the duo went on and forged another offer letter offering their company 14.4354 hectares of land on stand numbers 18991 to 19042 under layout plan TP2F2219/3 dated December 15, 2015 purportedly authored and signed by Sibusiso Sithole as the housing director of City of Harare.

The State alleges that with these three forged documents, the duo went on and invaded council land and engaged an agent to carry out land development for 52 residential stands measuring 2 000 square meters each.

The land baron suspects with the intention to deceive unsuspecting land seekers they advertised on Properties and Classified website through an agent irregardless that these stands were illegally developed .

Resultantly over 45 unsuspecting land seekers reached out to an agent who led them to the duo and made payments for the said stands in the range of US$25 000 to US$40 000 cash and were issued out with lease agreements and offer letters signed by the duo as the land sellers.

After purchasing the stands from the two, the land seekers began to erect their housing structures there.

According to court documents, the City of Harare, on realising this development, moved to the ground and demolished the illegally built housing structures.

The court was informed that the duo rushed to the High Court of Zimbabwe and filed an urgent chamber application seeking for a relief order to stop the Council from demolishing the structures as well as interdicting the Council from evicting them from the land.

In the application, the duo misrepresented to the court that they were legal owners of the land by tendering fake allocation letter dated April 21, 2021, purportedly issued by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.

Verifications done by the council to the Ministry's department of Spatial Planning established that allocation letter that were presented to them before the courts by the duo were not authentic.

To date, the City of Harare is reportedly trying to recover the invaded land from these land barons through civil courts.

Through the illegal invasion of the land by the two, council is bound to lose its land because of the misrepresentations made to unsuspecting land seekers that the duo had been legally allocated the land by City of Harare to develop them into 52 residential stands.

It is alleged that the unsuspecting buyers are bound to lose over US$1.5 million since the City of Harare is repossessing its land and allocate it to individuals on their housing waiting list.