The family of Emma Machacha, ZANU PF vice-chairperson for Masango district, has been evicted from Koala Farm and dumped along the Harare-Seke Road.
The family was one of the twelve families that were ordered by the High Court to vacate the farm.
Machacha spoke to NewsDay indicating that the families were left stranded. NewsDay quotes Machacha as saying:
We received a court order to move out last week on Tuesday. We had established our settlements here and have crops and chicken runs. They are now destroying our assets and throwing them on the road.
Simbarashe Chimbi, a liberation war fighter whose family was among the evicted, told NewsDay that the farm was taken over by the government in 2000 soon after land invasions and parcelled out to several families. Chimbi is cited as saying:
This farm was given to the people in 2000 after government acquired it. All along, we knew that government owned this farm. The Local Government ministry did not tell us that it had sold the farm to a company called Lilly Investments.
We didn’t know that government was giving out title deeds for farms and yet this white businessman only known as Benjamin managed to acquire one. These people who evicted us are the same people who are now asking us to vote for them.
The farm, which is located some 13km south of Harare, has reportedly been sold to a company called Lilly Pilly Investments.