Meet the rich and famous of Plumtree

THE big and beautiful house that the Mgunis have is not in Selbourne Park, neither is it in Borrowdale Brook in Harare.

The state-of-the-art house is a rare one to find in rural Zimbabwe but Mr Obedingwa Mguni and Mrs Hlalani Cara Mguni are the proud owners of the "mansion" which is located right in the core of rural Plumtree, Macingwane Area, Obedingwa's home area.

The house is fully furnished with a Plasma screen, leather couch (in the living room) fitted kitchen cupboards and a number of bedrooms.

So big and breathtaking is the house!

As if this is not enough, just a stone's throw from the house, builders are at work and they are in the midst of erecting another house. It's not just a mere house but a two storey house.

The yellow Hummer H3 is not the one that belongs to former Zimbabwe international soccer star Benjani Mwaruwari, it belongs to the couple.

Its number plate is privatised as Madlala GP.

B-Metro caught up with the couple and asked why all these valuable assets in a communal area, which is a very rare development to many in Zimbabwe.

It is very synonymous with those who seem to be financially stable to live in low density suburbs like Hillside, Khumalo, Burnside (Bulawayo), Greendale, Gunhill (Harare), just to mention but a few.

The couple revealed they were into businesses and they were using their reapings wisely for the benefit of their children.

"We have companies in South Africa. We have a mechanical, and civil engineering company named KOM Technical and we work hand-in- glove with Gibert Moyo who was the 2005 farmer of the year in Zimbabwe. We also have a construction company (Obedian Construction). This is for the benefit of our children," said Mr Mguni.

He said their mechanical and engineering company has won a number of tenders in Gauteng Province (South Africa) and they will soon be supplying various things that include pumps and boilers to prisons and police stations in Johannesburg and Pretoria, among other places in the province.

Mr Mguni said they also have a soft spot for farming hence they have a lot of praise for Zimbabwe's land reform programme which was initiated just before the turn of the new millennium.

As they say, actions speak larger than words.

A few metres from Mguni's house there is a mountain that the seemingly energetic Mgunis have started to construct ' a 100 000-litre water reservoir which is fed by four boreholes.

The reservoir is meant to irrigate various vegetables which he hopes to supply to Plumtree and surrounding areas.

"We have also thought of being actively involved in agriculture, especially market gardening. In this endeavour we also work with Obert Moyo. We had to drill a mountain and constructed a 100 000-litre reservoir so that we can manage to irrigate the vegetables. We used 450 bags of cement to construct the reservoir and various materials that we brought from South Africa. I have great respect for the country's land distribution programme," said Mguni.

Meanwhile, while leaving in communal lands might not go down well with the majority of well- up women. Mrs Mguni is rather content, though she admits it was very difficult in their first years of marriage.

"I'm happy to be living here. Yes, one would be expecting us to be living in a low-density suburb or anywhere in Bulawayo but as a family we are happy to be staying here. The children love this place and I love it. I initially had reservations in living in rural Plumtree during our first days of marriage with my husband," said .Mrs Mguni.

"We have a house in Luveve (one of Bulawayo's high-density, suburbs) but we don't stay there. We love this place in Macingwane. The children don't like to stay in Bulawayo," said Mrs Mguni.

The couple has been married for 20 years and is blessed with two girls and a boy who were all born in South Africa.