ZDF, police chiefs Sibanda and Matanga sued by farmers over Mazowe farm

Farmers argue that farm is protected by bilateral agreement

Farm grab ... ZDF commander Phillip Valerio Sibanda and police chief Godwin Matanga accused of grabbing farm protected by bilateral agreement

HARARE – Police Commissioner General Godwin Matanga and Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander General Phillip Valerio Sibanda have been accused of attempting an illegal seizure of a farm in Mazowe.

Greek farmers Andreas Peter and Shaun Livaditakis have taken the two security chiefs to the High Court claiming ownership of Goede Hoop Farm, which they say is covered by a bilateral agreement.

The two are seeking an order cancelling offer letters given to the security chiefs.

Also cited as respondents are the Provincial Lands Officer and Lands Minister.

Court papers show that Sibanda and Matanga arrived at Goede Hoop in 2018 and demanded that the farmers vacate because ownership had been transferred to them.

“Sometime in 2018, the 1^st (Matanga) and 2^nd (Sibanda) respondents stormed the farm and told me that I needed to leave the farm as the farm was now theirs. I showed them the proof that I was in lawful occupation but they would have none of that,” Peter says in the court filing.

Matanga and Sibanda, the farmer says, forcibly entered the farm and started accommodating themselves.

“The 1^st and 2^nd respondents then gave me copies of their offer letters some two months after they stormed the farm. I then noted that the two documents are not really offer letters per se but mere letters written by the 4^th respondent (then lands minister Perrance Shiri) to the 1^st and 2^nd respondents confirming the allocations of the applicants’ farm,” Peter added in an affidavit.

Livaditakis is arguing that the farm legally belongs to him as his family made an agreement with the government in 2001 which converted it into state land.

He argues: “The applicants then agreed with the government that since the land programme had to be carried out, it was important that the applicants be given and allocated Goede Hoop and that the rest of the farms be given to other beneficiaries…

“The Goede Hoop Farm is protected under a Bilateral Investments Protection and Promotion Agreement (BIPPA). What it means is that even though the farm is now state land, it falls under BIPPA and is protected accordingly.”

The farmers want the offer letters to be declared unlawful and the High Court to return the farm to them.

The matter is yet to be heard.