Nkomo orders Made, Moyo, Chinamasa to hand over farms

Nkomo orders Made, Moyo, Chinamasa to hand over farms

NKOMO: Served letters on Cabinet colleagues

• Mohadi sues Made over invaders

• Zanu PF factions battle over farms

• Mugabe's spin doctor eyes presidency

• Moyo clashes with Shamuyarira over Sky

• Zanu PF at war over Mugabe's successor

• Trouble brews on Mohadi's farm

• No nationalisation - Moyo

• Zim to nationalise land - Nkomo

• Supreme Court blow for farmers

• Zimbabwe land grab law challenged

• Nuns join land grab

• Farmer shoots settler dead

• Msika: "Not defeated on Kondozi"

• Kondozi farm worker shot by police

• Zim flogs farmers' equipment

• Nyambuya's workers desert farm

By Basildon Peta

FRESH divisions rocked Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party Thursday when President Robert Mugabe's Cabinet colleagues were served with letters instructing them to relinquish extra farms.

And it was the regime's own tightly controlled media that broke the story that Mugabe's closest cronies returned from a weekly cabinet meeting to find letters on their desks telling them to hand over the farms.

The Herald newspaper,which has been central to all spats between Cabinet ministers immediately launched a direct attack on the Special Affairs Minister, John Nkomo, who is spearheading a drive to get back extra farms.

The order followed a weekend warning by Mugabe that multiple farm owners should surrender extra farms and retain only one.

But those named by the Herald newspaper as having received the letters denied owning extra farms. The Herald has long been associated with the powerful information minister Jonathan Moyo, who also writes a Saturday column using a pseudonym.

The letters were served on Mugabe stalwarts including Minister of Local Government Ignatius Chombo, Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made, Minister of Justice Patrick Chinamasa, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and Minister of Transport Christopher Mushohwe.

The Herald said an "excited messenger" moved from office to office in several government ministries with a bundle of letters.

"The messenger was telling people that there was now drama because he was dishing out letters from Minister John Nkomo to multiple farm owners," the paper quoted an unnamed source as saying.

In the attack on Nkomo, the Herald said the manner in which the action against extra farms was being conducted was irrational and was throwing land reform into turmoil.

Nkomo has made no secret of his disdain for those owning extra farms, a disdain that is shared by Mugabe. Other top party officials are fully behind Nkomo.

Sources said many new farm owners had registered them in the names of relatives, a tactic white farmers were accused of during the resettlement exercise.

"You would therefore have to prove that there is a
corrupt connection between the minister and the acquisition of the farm by the relative. It's almost impossible to do," said a source.

For instance, Mugabe's spin doctor, Jonathan Moyo, denied owning an extra farm, but admitted the particular farm he had been ordered to surrender was owned by a close relative.

Moyo said the farm at issue in Hwange had been withdrawn from his ownership a long time ago and had been allocated to Jackie Mayers, his cousin.

"She is staying at the farm and she is entitled to it. She was officially allocated the farm and if they want to withdraw it, why don't they write to her?" said Moyo.

He did not explain why the Hwange farm was allocated to a relative.
Cape Argus
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com