evict someone on the basis of an offer letter if they are to follow the law.
At this stage I do not know of a single case – of any of the thousands of farmers and managers and workers and their families who have been evicted – where the eviction has taken place in a proper legal manner, with an eviction order from our courts.
The courts and the rule of law have been bypassed in the rush from covetousness into intimidation, theft, murder and the rest.
In the Mike Campbell P/L case pertaining to Mount Carmel Farm, due to be heard on 22 March in the Supreme Court, we hope to bring into focus justice issues that need to be faced if we as a country are to halt our continuing headlong rush into the desert of disaster, despair and death.
All your prayers would be appreciated.
PS: The owner of Mount Carmel Farm is Mike Campbell P/L and not myself, as stated in your article.
BEN FREETH, Mount Carmel Farm, Chegutu
Water schemes were stymied
EDITOR – I read Eddie Cross’s ‘Waiting for the Rain’ with interest but he failed to mention the proposed pipeline from the Zambezi to Bulawayo.
It has a history going back to the time of WW1. Some whites resurrected it some years after Independence. I remember the Chronicle publishing lists of contributions to finance a feasibility study. Even primary schools chipped in.
But the government had to interfere and wreck it as soon as it began to take off (with some Zapu politicians on the committee).
Soon we had a grandiose scheme with a vast area of irrigation in MatNorth and water for all its habitations. Then a dam on the Khami confluence was invented. Funds were sought (from Iran?) and not found. I recall a picture of our water minister on the site, with her bucket and spade, but by then no one would lend or give to a submerging state.
In the 1992 drought, Mugabe gave the okay for panning – and forgot to end it when it rained. Now siltation is the norm. And the government collects the gold.
We did have a feasibility study, by the way – a litre of water would have cost several times as much as we paid in those days, and would have made irrigation ludicrously expensive. Did I hear that the scheme was to be exhumed and painfully resurrected?
UNDERTAKER(or HE ROSE ACHER???), Zimbabwe
Thieves left us powerless
EDITOR – Two weeks ago, the electricity transformer at Glenview 5 Primary School was stolen. This has plunged a whole section of that community into the pre-1900s dark ages.
The bore, which many rely on for water, is now out of commission. So not only do they not have power, they also don’t have water.
Telephone communication is a non-starter as most phones are electrical and cell phones need power to function.
I am not one to be emotional but this leaves me feeling physical pain like I have never before felt for my countrymen. I also feel as helpless as they feel.
With the uncaring attitudes that many corporations (especially Zesa) display, I cannot but predict doom and gloom for those affected.
A transformer is too big a thing to just disappear. Someone somewhere acquired one recently… quite possibly, one of those new farmers needing power for their new house ordered one from known heartless suppliers (read ‘thieves’).
This is at the expense of a few hundred families who have no hope at all of regaining power.
The cynic in me cannot help but think that someone in Zesa is involved, even if it is just by turning a blind eye to this shameful act. Presumably the local Zesa people installed this transformer at its new home. Why did they not question its origin?
My heart goes out to these poor families and I hope they have the courage to keep knocking on Zesa’s doors until they are heard. They do pay for the service, don’t they?
FUNGAI NYAMPINGIDZA, Harare???
First, define ‘corruption’
EDITOR – ‘Karimanzia vows war on corruption’, said your headline. He doesn’t know what that means. He calls businessmen corrupt but the only ‘crime’ we hear of is the charging of more than a silly controlled price.
This only occurs because the government sets prices that mean bankruptcy or sackings or closure for businesses. After arresting a few such innocents, the authorities usually put the prices up.
The main increases come from the parastatals and other government institutions. No commercial increases match those of school or hospital fees.
If my favourite tipple has gone up from $4 000 to$14 000 since Christmas, I don’t blame the manufacturers, distributors or retailers; they are up against a financial blizzard which is not their doing.
If ‘corruption’, as you report him saying, has brought Harare to its knees, it is not because businessmen charge too much for sprockets to repair civic apparatus. Corruption thrives among bureaucrats; that’s what it means.
So Karimanzia should deal with his own sort, which is what ‘regardless of political affiliation’ means. Admittedly, MDC members may have been corrupted in this environment.
Karimanzia spoke of ‘briefcase’ companies. Name one.
And shouldn’t the party’s toady, the Bishop of Mashonaland who has been rewarded with a farm or two, be propelled to the confessional?
MEA CULPA, Zimbabwe