'White farmers should keep their land bribes'

Mashonaland East Provincial Affairs  minister Joel Biggie Matiza (pictured) has sensationally claimed that some white commercial farmers have been trying to talk him out of embarking on an audit of the land ownership patterns in the sprawling province.

Matiza has threatened to do away with "phoney agreements" with white farmers that had been entered into by the political and government leadership before he came into power.

"I have been getting calls from people I do not even know, inviting me for lunch and supper. I will not be bribed or cowed. I am aware there were funny agreements that kept some undeserving people on the land without offer letters.

"If anybody, anywhere in the province is sitting on a farm without the proper documentation then they should expect no mercy. We are very much aware of their intentions and we will not fall into that trap," he said.

The Provincial Affairs minister took a swipe at his predecessors in Mashonaland East, among them axed chairperson Ray Kaukonde who stands accused of conniving with white farmers to bring them back onto the land "through the back door".

"Leadership should be measured by the tangible results that are seen in the form of service delivery. We cannot have a leadership whose only claim to fame is its connections with white farmers in the hope of amassing personal wealth.

"The kind of leadership we have had since 1980 has been one that is detached from reality, and most of them have been in those position on the basis of their ability to bribe their way through elections and other such party and government processes. That is why they did not care about delivery of service to people because come election time, they will once again come with bags of cash and bribe their way through," Matiza said.

He was addressing government officials in Chikomba District on Monday at which he was told that lack of leadership and corruption had stalled progress. Chivhu has, for decades, sought government approval to be granted town status but to no avail and the district is still regarded as a growth point, according to officials.

The provincial chief said corruption in the province was "stinking to high heaven".

"Zanu-PF must have a new way of doing things and we need to show the way. There is corruption everywhere, and in particular at lower levels of government. That should be stopped," Matiza said.

Matiza has, since his appointment following the conclusion of the emotive Zanu-PF congress late last year and the subsequent cabinet shake-up, embarked on a whirlwind tour of the province. He has had to deal with simmering tensions in Mashonaland East, with veterans of the country's liberation struggle agitating for invasion of properties owned by politicians connected with deposed vice-president Joice Mujuru.

Kaukonde is believed to have been a top Mujuru acolyte who lost his position in the party as tempers flared in the run-up to the party's December congress. The Marondera lawmaker was accused of bribery and electoral fraud connected to Zanu-PF's internal polls ahead of the harmonised elections in 2013.

Traditional leaders in the province have joined the chorus to invade farms owned by Kaukonde and his accomplices believed to have been rooting for Mujuru to assume the Zanu-PF presidency. Mujuru was accused of seeking to unconstitutionally unseat President Mugabe, with Kaukonde being fingered as having been among the scheme's chief financiers.