Mugabe urged to stop the vultures

Only President Robert Mugabe can now save the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo's Nuanetsi Ranch as "political vultures" swoop on the vast land, the resident director of the farm has said.

The contested ranch is registered under the Development Trust of Zimbabwe (DTZ) which was founded by the late Vice President in 1989, when it was then earmarked to produce bio-fuels in Zimbabwe's Lowveld region.

Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, the minister of State for Masvingo, allegedly working in tandem with a group of senior directors at the Tongaat Hulett-owned Triangle (Pvt) Limited, is said to have seized the ranch, putting in jeopardy the welfare of at least 3 000 families who were relocated in February to the Chingwizi transit camp, in Mwenezi district, about 150km from the flooded Tokwe-Mukorsi dam basin where they used to live.

Charles Madonko, the resident director of Nuanetsi Trust, said it was Nkomo's wish for Mugabe to protect the land from expropriation.

"I remember during Josh's last days, he would always chase me away from his bedside charging me to go back to Nuanetsi and protect the property," Madonko said.

"His final words on the matter were 'I am going but Robert Mugabe will take care of you.'

"I wish the old lady Mafuyana (Nkomo's wife) was alive, she would stand by me on this truth. I am being told to stop talking to the press, but I can't. I need to hear the President himself pronounce to me that 'Madonko, I have reversed my pledge to Nkomo and allowed the takeover of the ranch by Bhasikiti and his crew – once I hear this then I back off',"

DTZ has written to Triangle (Pvt) Limited seeking "clarification on their role in this whole saga" following submissions by the Provincial Minister Kudakwashe Bhasikiti to vice president Joice Mujuru in a closed door meeting in Masvingo before she addressed the Women's League Provincial chapter.  He indicated the names of the directors being involved in the shadowy outfit (names withheld).

Bhasikiti was not picking his phone yesterday, but he recently told the Daily News that the planned takeover will go ahead, claiming that the land was state property.

But Madonko maintains that there was no official position on the latest incursions but rather, "it's just politicians running around misinterpreting government laws to justify their actions."

"This whole matter boils down to our tendency to just grab property even from our own people," Madonko said.

"As a nation, we need to get out of this culture of grabbing what belongs to someone else, otherwise we will never develop. Who will sink money into an economy where decisions made at business levels can be reversed if they are found to be unprofitable to individual politicians? We can't move forward like that."

Madonko says he will only stop fighting for one of Nkomo's living legacies "if the President has allowed the takeover of the ranch."

"I will quit because I respect his voice," he said. "His Excellency has been a prime witness to all our fights for survival, how we persevered in the atmosphere of capital starvation from central government, he even congratulated us when we announced the joint venture investment for ethanol development in 2008 and in his wisdom, he warned us that the political landscape in Masvingo would disappoint us and today here we are, we are just being pushed as if we don't exist."

Madonko described the land invaders as "these johnny-come-lately politicians," who cannot rewrite that past.