War vet farmers at Springs Farm in Goromonzi have filed a hard-hitting response opposing the government’s latest attempt to reopen a land case that was already settled by the High Court, accusing authorities of trying to keep the legal debate alive despite clear judicial findings — and despite another arm of government recently commending the farm for its high productivity.

The farmers are represented by Professor Lovemore Madhuku of Lovemore Madhuku Lawyers.

One the war vet farmers, Unico Chikomo of the Springs Farmers Association, say the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works’ bid to revisit the Aspindale-Lochinvar land dispute amounts to defiance of both law and common sense.

In July this yearJudge Regis Dembure of the Harare High Court stopped government cold, saying Lands Minister Anxious Masuka’s move to withdraw offer letters from the farmers was “irrational and inconsiderate”. Masuka had failed to submit an opposing affidavit to the war vets application to stop his moves to take over the land but meanwhile Rautenbach had been granted the deed of transfer for the land on June 5, 2025 while the court hearing was still pending.

Government’s move to push the farmers out is on the back of a directive redesignating the farm land for residential development and awarding it to Billy Rautenbach’s company. The war vets say they are not challenging government's redesignation directive.

“We are not resisting development,” said Chikomo.  “The farmers are ready to take up urban development now, as they have the right of first refusal, are empowered in accordance of the law and inalienable rights held by veterans of the liberation struggle in the constitution and are settled there legally for the past 25 years. The constitution is clear that in terms of development it must empower those settled on the land. They have set up a company called Sovereign Springs Properties and have found investors to undertake genuine urban development.”

The government’s new filing seeks to reopen the long-running Marimba Residential Properties saga — even though the High Court already ruled in 2019 that businessman Billy Rautenbach and his related companies had no claim to the Aspindale land in question.
That judgment declared the land lawfully acquired by the State and the housing co-operatives lawfully settled, describing the ministry’s earlier attempt to withdraw allocations as “null and void and of no force or effect.”

Now, six years later, the same ministry has filed what the farmers call a “fatally defective composite application” to revisit the issue, tying the old Aspindale case to a new “compensation” offer for over 1 100 hectares of land at Springs and Stuhm.

In documents filed last week and seen by Zim Now, the farmers argue that the government’s latest motion is procedurally unsound because the earlier ruling was on the merits, not by default — meaning it cannot be rescinded.

“The judgment speaks for itself and is clearly headed ‘Opposed Application’,” their papers read. “Rescission is therefore out of the question, as the judgment is on the merits and is final and definitive.”

The filing accuses the ministry of attempting to merge three distinct legal actions into one — an approach the farmers call “jurisprudentially untenable and unknown to Zimbabwean law.”

The controversy stems from a March 2025 letter by Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe, offering Marimba Residential Properties “final compensation” of 671 hectares at Springs Farm and 412 hectares at Stuhm for “180 hectares lost in Aspindale.”

Adding to the irony, only months before the dispute escalated, another branch of government singled out Springs Farm for its high yields and contribution to national wheat output, urging other farmers to emulate its success.

Analysts have already sounded the alarm over Harare’s sprawl into peri urban farmland, saying that it is a growing threat to national food security.
Now efforts are again underway to evict those same farmers to make way for Marimba Residential Properties — a company that court and registry records show has no valid title deed and is not registered in Zimbabwe.

The Registrar of Companies confirmed in 2018 that “Marimba Residential Properties and Marimba Industrial Properties are not registered companies in our database.”
The Deeds Office likewise admitted that the supposed title linking Marimba to Aspindale is “missing from the record.”

Interestingly the office then declared that the whole record for the pertinent period is missing and it is impossible to prove Marimba’s title..