HARARE - Phillip Chiyangwa is suing the Harare City Council and The Standard Newspaper of US$ 900 million for defamation over allegations of land theft. Chiyangwa and the Minister of Local Government and Urban Development ,Ignatius Chombo, have been reported to police following a report tabled by the council that the two had illegally acquired vast pieces of land.
The businessman, who is a former Rhodesian police officer, is suing both in his personal capacity and through his companies Kilima Investments and Pinnacle Holdings.
In papers filed at the High Court recently, Chiyangwa, said his companies suffered damages for defamation in the sum of USD250 million and revenue loss in the sum of another USD250 million. In his personal capacity he said he suffered damages for loss of reputation and trauma in the sum of USD400 million.
If you do not enter appearance to defend, the plaintiffs claims will be heard and dealt with by the High Court without further notice to you. The said words (of the report) in the context of the report, are wrongful and defamatory of the plaintiffs in that they were intended and were understood by readers of the report and the newspaper publications that the plaintiffs are dishonest.
Further, the content of the report is false and defamatory of the plaintiffs in that it imputes, and was intended by the defendants to impute, that the plaintiffs were involved in a fraudulent syndicate with citys employees to steal the citys land, argued Chiyangwa in court papers through his lawyer, Farai Mutangamira.
As the see saw battle continues, council said police were so scared of investigating Chombo and Chiyangwa over the land grab scandal, forcing them to appeal to highly ranked police officers to intervene.
Council also wanted senior employees Psychology Chiwanga director of urban planning services and Cosmas Zvikaramba the finance director arrested for conniving with Chiyangwa and Chombo to steal council land.
Council through acting mayor, Charity Bango reported the matter to police at Harare Central Police but so far no arrests have been made.
Chombo, has also gone ahead with counter investigations on the Harare city councillors who exposed him for land fraud.
A committee hand-picked by Chombo to investigate alleged grabbing of houses from Zanu (PF) supporters by the MDC is being seen as a tactic by the wealthy minister to divert attention from his involvement in the scandal.
Despite resistance from council, Chombo has imposed his authority and gone ahead with investigating the councillors amid reports that he wants to use the probe to suspend the council and put in place a commission.
Besides coming up with a committee to investigate councillors, Chombo has also been allegedly inciting a handful of Zanu (PF) supporters to demonstrate against the councillors.
However, Chombo met his first brick wall last week when Masunda turned down his request to pay members of the investigating committee USD$5 000 each for the job.
Chombo tried to pay his so called committee US$5000 each to investigate us but we said no and the mayor had no option except to shoot down the ministers request. This is a complete waste of resources because Chombos committee is coming to just fix us for exposing the land grab scandal, said a source.
We are aware that Chombo has already compiled his report which he wants to endorse through his dubious committee. We also know that one of the committee members is a relative of Chombo. We will not co-operate with the committee.
In a normal situation, councillors, get US$10 a day for carrying out investigations but Chombo wants us to give his people US$5000 for doing his dirty jobs on us, said a councillor who refused to be named.
Post published in: News