High Court Dismisses Mabvirakare's Bid To Bar A ZANU PF Official From Tree-Planting Project
The High Court has dismissed an application by Green Rebirth Trust, led by Nadia Vongai Mabvirakare, seeking an order to bar Batsirai Matiza from interfering with an ongoing carbon credit tree-planting project at Chemapango Secondary School in Murewa. The project aims to cultivate over one million fruit trees.
Matiza, a senior ZANU PF politician, had reportedly invested more than US$20,000 into the project after Mabvirakure approached him for assistance.
However, as the project expanded, Matiza allegedly attempted to take control, leading Mabvirakure to file the application in a bid to protect her initiative.
On March 12, Justice Happias Zhou of the Harare High Court dismissed the application in a brief ruling, with a full judgment still to be released. Reads Zhou’s order:
Whereupon after reading documents filed of record and hearing counsel, the application be and is hereby dismissed.
Matiza, who is ZANU PF secretary for environment, was cited as a respondent together with one Tichabaiwa Gwadu and Familia Muvhimwa.
In court papers, Mabvirakare had alleged that between September and November 2024, she received donations from several benefactors, including Matiza towards the tree nursery project.
She further claimed that on February 27, 2025, the respondents acting in concert went to her farm and forcibly took control of the same effectively dispossessing her. Said Mabvirakare:
Applicant has further learnt that the respondents are holding themselves out as the owners of the project and are attempting to sell off the project’s nursery stock to a third party without the applicant’s consent or participation.
Respondents have barred the applicant from accessing its farming location and from continuing its operations thereat, the applicant is fearful that the respondents will sell off its nursery stock and make off with proceeds to the applicant’s detriment.
Applicant seeks an order restoring its full and undisturbed possession of the farming location as well as an interdict barring the respondent from entering the mining location and from marketing, removing, or otherwise dealing with the nursery stock at said location pending the return date.
She said she would suffer irreparable harm if the court does not intervene urgently, asserting that the respondents are poised to dispose of the nursery stock on her farm, effectively excluding her from the project.
Mabvirakare was reportedly abducted in Chitungwiza on March 5, 2025, and was later found in a state of shock and trauma in Dangamvura, Mutare, on March 10, 2025.
She was subsequently taken to a private hospital in Harare to receive treatment for both physical and psychological injuries.
Rights activist and Green Rebirth Trust board member Abigail Mupambi linked the alleged abduction to the ongoing Chemapango tree-planting project.
More: NewZimbabwe.com
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