Zanu (PF) steals farm, land and future

Stolen equipment

48 tractors

4 Scania trucks

5 UD trucks

26 motorbikes

several T35 trucks

MUTARE – Where 5000 Zimbabwean employees once made a good living off the productive land, there is now severe hunger. Where healthy crops once sprouted, there are now nothing but weeds.

This is the sad story of Kondozi Farm, formerly one of Zimbabwes biggest horticultural products exporters, before it was ruined by Zanu (PF) after its often bloody land seizures under President Robert Mugabe.

Good Friday 2004 was not so good for Edwin Moyo – the rightful owner of the farm located in Odzi, about 40km west of Mutare, and his 5000 workers.

Dozens of armed police arrived with water cannons, submachine guns and ordered everyone to vacate the property.

The partisan police and overzealous war veterans blocked off the road leading to the farm, looted the offices and beat anyone who sought to resist their orders.

Five Zanu (PF) ministers, namely Didymus Mutasa, Joseph Made, Christopher Mushohwe, Munacho Mutezo and Mike Nyambuya, were among the senior party officials to join the looting spree.

Zimbabwes Attorney General gave the cabinet ministers a couple of months to return equipment looted from key horticultural farms or face arrest. But the order fell on deaf ears as the ministers defied the call.

The stolen equipment included 48 tractors, four Scania trucks, five UD trucks, several T35 trucks and 26 motorbikes. Several tonnes of fertilisers and chemicals were also lost.

The High Court in May 2004 granted Barclays an order to repossess all movable farming equipment at Kondozi Farm.

Movable assets listed in the court order included an ERF 30-tonne truck, two-tonne forklifts, 30 motorised knapsacks, 10 Jialings, 15 Same tractors, six Nissan Diesel UD 90 chassis & cab trucks, three Nissan Cabstar 4-tonne trucks, two Nissan 2,7 S/cab trucks and two Nissan 2,7 Hardbody D/cabs.

Barclays-Fincor, Zimbank-Syfrets and the African Banking Corporation were the chief sponsors of Kondozi, which had established lucrative export markets in South Africa and Europe.

But unlike earlier farm seizures, the takeover of Kondozi prompted questions. Many Zimbabweans were puzzled at how the Zanu (PF) government could take a business which was owned by a black man, employed so many people and generated so much precious foreign currency.

In defending the takeover, Zanu (PF) officials pointed out that although Moyo was majority owner of the business, a white family the De Klerks still owned the land.

Yet even within Mugabe’s party, the seizure provoked outrage so intense it caused a rare public fracture.

The late Vice President Joseph Msika, who oversaw land redistribution for Mugabe, in vain tried to block the takeover.

Vice President Joice Mujuru, who chaired the National Economic Recovery Council, also unsuccessfully tried to push for the revival of Kondozi as one of the major objectives of the National Economic Development Programme.

Shocked workers and nearby villagers many of whom relied cheap produce from the land – were left with nothing as they pondered their future.

Moyo owned 52 per cent of Kondozi, running a horticultural company that stocked vegetable bins throughout Britain and brought in $15 million a year to Zimbabwe.

Life was good at Kondozi

A former supervisor at the farm, who is now living in poverty, said: Life was good at Kondozi. We were paid handsomely and everything flowed smoothly. We never complained of anything. But when the farm was invaded we were left jobless. Since that time I am still jobless.

A former accounts department employee, who now survives on cross-border trading, said: I will never forgive them (Zanu PF) for invading the farm. We were living a comfortable life. The administration of the farm was good, he added.

It was a very big company as there were three buses that carried the workers from Mutare daily to and from work. It was a prestigious company to work for and everyone cherished it.

Jeffrey Marange, a former senior employee, said Kondozi was history which left behind permanent scars of sad memories.

Look at Kondozi today, it is like a desert. We used to live a good life but since Zanu (PF) took away the farm the workers were left suffering and up to now some are still leaving in abject poverty.

Marange said some workers, many of them general hands, remain unemployed and have accused Mugabes Zanu (PF) of being insensitive to their plight.

But the Kondozi debacle has returned to haunt Zanu (PF). Kondozi farm lies in Mutare West constituency which used to be a stronghold of Zanu (PF) where Manicaland illegal governor Chris Mushowe dominated.

At the 2008 harmonized election the people in Mutare West, still suffering the pain of the closure of Kondozi Farm, voted for change.

Shaur Mudiwa of PM Morgan Tsvangirais MDC pipped Mushowe, a shock result which further suggested Zanu (PF) support was fading in the province.

People are angry with what Mushowe and other Zanu (PF) did by closing and invading Kondozi Farm, said a traditional leader, who requested anonymity for fear of severe reprisals.

Zanu (PF) will never win an election here again. Most villagers who used to work at the farm are still angry. Since 2006 some of our children have not been going to school, as the former Kondozi workers did not have any income at all. This is a very grave mistake that Zanu (PF) made.

Another former worker said: As workers we can easily identify the ministers who had disposed the companys assets in underhand dealings. A lot of spare parts were sold and machinery and other vehicles were looted and we ended up recovering scrap metal for our day-today operations.

Twenty-two farmers, most of whom are black and who sold beans, corn, melons and other crops under contract to Kondozi, also lost their livelihoods.

Hundreds more workers were employed by these smaller farms, many of which have stopped producing and are now living in poverty.

A visit to Kondozi Farm today shows that on Kondozi’s 550 acres, only a few fields still had crops, and these are stunted and immature grown by war veterans who do not have technical farming expertise.

In April 2004, the same month Kondozi was seized, the United Nations World Food Programme reported feeding 4.5 million Zimbabweans.

The closure of Kondozi Farm brought more suffering to the community as school going children dropped out of school. Girls have been married off to better-off families in exchange of food.

Prostitution and illegal mining has become rife since the collapse of the farm.

The disheartened workers have called for the farm to be returned to previous owner, Moyo.

One worker said: We were better off when we were under Moyo. We enjoyed everything and we led a normal life. We could afford to live a life with all the basics, but now we have been made to suffer by few corrupt individuals and crooks who want to reap where they did not sow.

The suffering former workers said they have sold property, clothes and everything they had accumulated in the previous years to buy food.

Former employee Aleck Jangano said: Our girl children have ventured into prostitution. There have been family breakdowns, as some wives have deserted their homes and have been married by illegal diamond dealers at nearby Chiadzwa diamond field.

The present state of the farm, previously the cash-cow for most residents of the city Mutare and Odzi villagers, has left the community hopeless and pondering a future which appears bleak.