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Mashudu Netsianda Senior Court Reporter
MORE than 1,000 Siansundu villagers have sued the Binga Rural District Council after the local authority relocated them from their area to pave way for a new business centre.
The 1,135 villagers led by their village head, James Mkombe through their lawyer, Lizwe Jamela of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, on Friday filed an urgent chamber application seeking nullification of a master plan and allocation of land at Mvundu village in Siansundu.
According to the court papers filed at the Bulawayo High Court, Mkombe, Aaron Mdimba, Evelyn Mudenda and Emion Mupande are the applicants while the chief executive officer of Binga RDC, Joshua Mzamba, District Administrator, Witness Kufa, Matabeleland North provincial administrator Latiso Dlamini and the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development Ignatius Chombo were cited as respondents.
In his founding affidavit, Mkombe said the decision by the local authority to displace them was unlawful and a violation of their basic human rights.
He argued the land was their birthright as they inherited it from their ancestors.
“I’m the village head of Siansundu village also known as Mvundu in Binga. I’ve lived in this area since my birth and before I was born, my parents lived and died in the same village and as such the Siansundu community has been in existence for decades. The people who live in this community know no other home besides Siansundu,” said Mkombe.
The villagers are accusing Binga RDC of allocating their land to developers without consulting them.
“In 1985, a portion of Mdimba’s fields was allocated to the veterinary office without any consultation whatsoever. Further in 2002, some stands were allocated to people who built homes of an urban nature right next to our homesteads and villagers were not consulted or given an option to own those stands,” said Mkombe.
He said Binga RDC officials at the beginning of the year visited the area and started pegging a stand for a church without consulting the villagers and explaining to them. The controversial church stand is pegged on existing homes of Mdimba, Mudenda and Mupande.
“By allocating the land belonging to the applicants to a church, it means the affected people will have to relocate from their homes. Our legal practitioner wrote a letter seeking a meeting with the Binga RDC to resolve the matter but nothing materialised,” he said.
The proposed rural service centre which Binga RDC intends to set up would comprise a Post Office, supermarket, commercial offices and residential stands. The master plan was drawn in 1996 and approved two years later by Binga RDC.
“All these proposed developments are planned on our existing homesteads. Should this plan be implemented, it means the entire village with 126 homesteads and a total of 1,135 people will be displaced and the majority are elderly people and young children who economically and physically are not in a position to start afresh”.
“If development means we will be homeless, we’re not willing to be developed as development is supposed to leave us better off not worse off,” stated Mkombe.
He added: “The people who stand to be affected are too many by any standard to displace, especially where there’s no plan for compensation and relocation. I find no logic in displacing the very people who’re supposed to benefit from the establishment of the service centre.”
Jamela said the decision to relocate villagers was a violation of human rights.
“The conduct of the respondents not only defeats logic, but violates their constitutionally enshrined rights and is therefore unlawful.
“The constitution provides that the affected villagers shouldn’t be arbitrarily evicted from their homes nor have their properties demolished without a court order. The planning of a service centre on the villagers’ land amounts to an arbitrary eviction as they will be forced to move when the imminent construction of the churches and supermarkets starts,” he said.
Bongani Moyo
Online Reporter