Jane Mutasa, ChiTown residents clash over land

Zim Now Writer

About 40 families settled on a part of Manyame Park Phase 5, St Mary’s in Chitungwiza are up in arms with businesswoman Jane Mutasa over a piece of land they have occupied for the past nine years.

Mutasa, founder of Telecel and the Indigenous Business Women Organisation, claims the land is hers and has since acquired an eviction order from the High Court (Case Number 1730/22) empowering the Messenger of Court to evict the families.

Though the eviction was supposed to have been carried out Friday, Mutasa did not turn up while the residents and their community leadership were in last-minute efforts to find a solutions to their woes.

Sometime las year, Mutasa descended on the land and caused the arrest of eight occupiers whom she alleged were trespassers. They are Jane Smoke, Rosemary Sauramba, Emina Takawira, Esiniya Kanosawa, Georgina Zimudzi, Kudzai Mudapakati naTendai Jimu.

She told them she had bought the land - though her company Massmore Investments (Pvt) Ltd - from Chitungwiza Municipality while, on the other hand, the occupiers claimed they were also in an arrangement with the same council to pay instalments leading to purchase of the same land.

They have since produced receipts at the Chitungwiza Magistrates’ Courts to prove this.

However, they allege that while the matter was still before the local courts at Chitungwiza, Mutasa had already appealed to the High Court where a judgement to evict them was passed in default.

“We were never invited to the high court, we were never served with summons. And what’s even more puzzling is the fact that the judgment is said to have been passed on November 2 last year and Mutasa has been holding on to it until Tuesday this week – almost a year later – to serve us with it.

“In court at Chitungwiza, we were acquitted after a witness from council management had been summoned to explain, so the allegation that we are trespassers has fallen away.

“We have been resident here since 2014, we have been paying instalments towards purchase so, if it is council that blundered by doubly allocating the land, it surely cannot be our problem,” said one of the residents who asked for anonymity.