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This arrangement follows Government intervention on Tuesday when Secretary for Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Dr Stephen Mahere said the ownership dispute should not disadvantage pupils.
Herentals College assumed control of the school after obtaining a High Court order barring the school head and his deputy from interfering with Herentals’ operations or running parallel programmes in November last year. Residents are saying the school is communal property and cannot be sold.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Cde Mutasa who is the former board chairman of the Cold Comfort Farm Trust said the school still belongs to the Cold Comfort Farm Trust and Herentals College should stay away.
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“Herentals College should be challenged to produce the documents proving ownership of the school, to produce receipts and an agreement of sale proving that they bought this school,” he said.
According to papers presented to the High Court, Herentals College bought the school from Unitime Investment. Enquiries at the Registrar of Companies to establish ownership of Unitime Investment for explanation on how they came to hold title deeds to the school were unsuccessful.
Although Unitime is a registered company (number 10297/02), an official at the office said the relevant file which has the list of directors could not be located.
He said The Herald could only return to the offices on Friday to inspect the documents as files are sometimes misplaced on re-filing or the file may be missing.
The wrangle over the school started last year when the other claimant to Cold Comfort School, Release Power linked to Onias Gumbo, produced a parallel title deed which was later discredited as it had been issued after the one made out to Unitime Investments.
This is not the first time that Cold Comfort Farm has been at the centre of a land dispute. In the late 90s Cold Comfort Society trustees and Israel Magwenzi’s company, Kama Construction battled in courts for control of the farm.
Magwenzi won a provisional court order in 1998 barring the society from selling, alienating or disposing of any portion of the farm saying that he had an oral management understanding with the trustees represented by Cde Didymus Mutasa. In October 1999 Supreme Court Justice Nick McNally ruled that Kama Construction had never possessed the farm thus restoring full control to the trust.
Cold Comfort Co-operative Society was founded as an empowerment drive in 1965 by a group of pioneers including Cde Didymus Mutasa and the late Guy Clutton Brock on land bought with the help of international well-wishers. In 1971 the Cold Comfort Society was deregistered and banned and the farm was taken over by the colonial Government.
Cde Mutasa and others reconstituted the trust after independence in 1980 and reclaimed the farm.
In 1998 the farm was subdivided into a properly constituted settlement whereby residential stands were sold to individuals.
Cold Comfort School Development Association chairman Mr Anderson Mhunza said there are now too many pupils to be accommodated at the school.
He said they would engage lawyers to assist them gain control of the school.
A Herentals official, who preferred anonymity, said Dr Mahere’s orders are in contempt of a High Court ruling and the college will rely on legal channels to resolve the dispute.
Dr Mahere’s decision came after hundreds of parents and pupils stormed the ministry’s head office on Tuesday contesting the takeover of the school.
Cold Comfort School was established by Guy and Molly Clutton Brock prior to Clutton Brock’s loss of citizenship and subsequent deportation in 1971.
Guy Clutton Brock was the first white person to be declared a national hero and his grave is at the National Heroes Acre.
Online Reporter