This week's issues
| Sheriff auctions black farmer's property |
| Written by STAFF REPORTER |
| Saturday, 07 November 2009 13:17 |
 HARARE – Mutare’s deputy sheriff has ordered the auctioning of a tractor belonging to Luke Tembani to recover costs incurred during the eviction of the country’s pioneering black commercial farmer, a human rights group said last week.Tembani was evicted from his Nyazura farm last month despite enjoying legal protection from the SADC Tribunal which ruled in his favour when he challenged the Zimbabwe government’s land reform programme early this year. Pressure group Sokwanele said Mutare deputy sheriff Mark Dzobo has instructed auctioneers to dispose of Tembani’s tractor, a Renault Agriculture 335 type M10 model, to recover costs he incurred while effecting the eviction of the black farmer from his Minverwag Farm in Nyazura. Tembani bought the tractor in 2005 through proceeds from his farm produce and has used the tractor for tillage purposes for the past four years. The pressure group said Dzobo’s costs also included those incurred by Takawira Zembe who has taken over the farm from Tembani. Tembani was one of the country’s first black commercial farmers shortly after independence in 1980 when he bought the Nyazura farm in 1983. His eviction from a farm was in defiance of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal ruling barring his removal from the property. The Windhoek-based SADC Tribunal had ruled that the repossession and sale of the farm by the state-run Agribank in order to recoup an outstanding loan was “illegal and void”. The Tribunal ordered government to take all necessary measures through its agents not to evict Tembani or his family from the property and to stop interfering with his use and occupation of the farm. But the government has refused to comply with the regional Tribunal’s order. Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa unilaterally pulled Zimbabwe out of the SADC Tribunal, a decision which was refuted by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. |
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