News / National
Diplomatic row erupts between Harare and Pretoria
11 Oct 2015 at 16:54hrs | Views
Zimbabwe has dispatched a team of legal experts to South Africa to lodge a complaint against the auctioning of a property in Cape Town owned by the Harare authorities by lawyers representing former white commercial farmers, APA reported.
According to the Southern Times, a diplomatic row has erupted between Harare and Pretoria, with the former accusing the latter of complicity in failing to offer diplomatic immunity to a property recently auctioned in Cape Town to offset legal costs owed to lawyers representing the farmers who got a favourable judgement from the defunct SADC Tribunal in 2008.
The weekly quoted Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Joey Bimha as saying Zimbabwe had dispatched a team of legal experts to South Africa to redeem money deposited into the account of the lawyers representing the farmers.
The lawyers, AfriForum, went ahead and auctioned the property belonging to the Zimbabwean government despite receiving the R840,000 (about US$63,000) cited as legal costs.
Bimha said Zimbabwe is sending a legal team to South Africa to lodge a complaint against the dodgy conduct of the lawyers who seemed keen on settling political scores with the Zimbabwean government instead of following the precepts of the laws.
"Our argument is that we paid the money on Friday to the lawyers and we had documents to prove that money has been received. However, to our surprise they went ahead and auctioned the house. We have sent officers in the Attorney General's Office to South Africa to claim that money," Bimha said.
The farmers took the Zimbabwean government to the South African High Court to contest the compulsory acquisition of their farms under Harare's controversial land reform programme that started in 2000.
According to the Southern Times, a diplomatic row has erupted between Harare and Pretoria, with the former accusing the latter of complicity in failing to offer diplomatic immunity to a property recently auctioned in Cape Town to offset legal costs owed to lawyers representing the farmers who got a favourable judgement from the defunct SADC Tribunal in 2008.
The weekly quoted Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Joey Bimha as saying Zimbabwe had dispatched a team of legal experts to South Africa to redeem money deposited into the account of the lawyers representing the farmers.
Bimha said Zimbabwe is sending a legal team to South Africa to lodge a complaint against the dodgy conduct of the lawyers who seemed keen on settling political scores with the Zimbabwean government instead of following the precepts of the laws.
"Our argument is that we paid the money on Friday to the lawyers and we had documents to prove that money has been received. However, to our surprise they went ahead and auctioned the house. We have sent officers in the Attorney General's Office to South Africa to claim that money," Bimha said.
The farmers took the Zimbabwean government to the South African High Court to contest the compulsory acquisition of their farms under Harare's controversial land reform programme that started in 2000.
Source - APA
