The manager reportedly lost household property and cash worth about US$6 000 and sustained bruises and head injuries from the attack. He and his wife were treated in a private hospital.
Gwindingwi farm, in Burma Valley is owned by white commercial farmer, Hirminus Johan Vorster. It is 60km South-east of Mutare and is famous for producing bananas for export markets.
The farm manager said that the self-proclaimed war veteran, Ephraim Khanda and government deputy minister of transport and communication, Hubert Nyanhongo, besieged the farm ordering him to “pack his things and go.”
“They just went ahead with the eviction disregarding a provisional High Court order which we got in July which states there should not be any barring of farm employees from doing their duties and the barricading of the property,” he said.
Maphosa said they had approached their lawyers, Mugadza, Mazengero and Dhliwayo to deal with the latest events.
“We gave away two farms to the government long back and now they are targeting the remaining farm. They took away farm equipment at another farm and we had to start afresh buying new farming equipment. That’s the one they are also coming after,” Johan Vorster, who had entered into an agreement with the government for no further farm seizures when he gave away two other farms in 2001, said
Both Nyanhongo and Khanda were not reachable for a comment.
Nyanhondo has been in the media recently for allegedly seizing a farm from Johan Vorster, a cousin of Hirminus Vorster’s, in Burma Valley. He harvested ripe bananas totaling an area covering 100hacters. The bananas, Vorster then said were worth over US$15 000. Again it was in defiance to another High Court provisional order.
“I can confirm we are dealing with such a case, but we have not yet made any arrest as we are still investigating,” a police official said. – CAJ News
Post published in: News