'No to illegal parcelling out of communal land'

TRADITIONAL leaders in Ntabazinduna, Matabeleland North province have warned people who bought communal land in the area in 2021 under unclear circumstances that they are in possession of illegal property.

This is one of the resolutions made by the traditional leaders after launching an investigation into illegal land sales and allocations in Ntabazinduna.

The traditional leaders, who include headmen, village heads and former Chief Nhlanhlayamangwe Ndiweni started investigating cases of illegal sale of communal land in 2019.

This is revealed in a statement released by Ndiweni.

"The traditional leaders and others of Ntabazinduna began their investigation in 2019 and managed to obtain the first evidence and records, with regard to this matter.

"This process is still continuing to date. In 2021 three separate groups of Ntabazinduna residents formed groups and obtained permission from the Chief (Ndiweni) to separately investigate and gather evidence," Ndiweni who still has influence in Ntabazinduna, said.

"In 2020, the traditional leaders agreed that no new stands would be issued to outsiders until this matter had been addressed.

"At the beginning of this year in a recorded ZOOM Traditional leaders meeting, with "Chief" Ndiweni it was once again reaffirmed that no new stands were being given out to people from outside of Ntabazinduna."

Ndiweni said they agreed that any stand sale made in 2021 to outsiders was null and void and would not be recognised by traditional leaders on behalf of the community.

"All stands issued from November 2019 to the end of 2020 are under investigation and strong action will be taken.

"Questionable structures will be demolished through the court system," Ndiweni said.

"Ntabazinduna is a communal land, which means that the land belongs to the whole community of Ntabazinduna.

"As a result no one has a title deed for any bit of land in Ntabazinduna. The land is owned by the people of Ntabazinduna. Which means no one can buy a virgin piece of Land in Ntabazinduna."

He added: "The only way one could purchase a stand in Ntabazinduna, is if there are dwellings on that piece of land, some form of development, for want of a better word.

"This would mean that the stand being sold would be old. Not new virgin land.

"One village head was removed because of inappropriate issuance of stands.

"There are a number of recurring adverts for stands being sold in Ntabazinduna.

"These have been traced, their locations visited.

"Some of the individuals having something to do with these activities have been identified."

Ndiweni said fraudsters were going around claiming to be agents for the traditional leaders to dupe desperate land seekers.

Ndiweni said in Ntabazinduna they would not tolerate illegal settlers. A case in point was the land dispute pitting former commercial farmer, Brian Davies and Floyd Ambrose that sparked controversy in 2019.

Documents show that Ambrose occupied the piece of land in 2004 — a time when the now dethroned Chief Ndiweni was in the United Kingdom where he worked at a local authority as a clerk.

Ndiweni accused the government of attempting to evict Davies from Tabs Induna Farm which houses the Chiefs Lodge to pave way for Ambrose.