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Munyaradzi Musiiwa Midlands Correspondent
GOVERNMENT has temporarily stopped the eviction of close to 2 000 families from Chemagora area in Gokwe, who recently invaded black-owned farms, saying the evictions were ill-timed and could not be done during the summer cropping season.Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Dr Ignatius Chombo said Government had resolved to engage Chemagora land owners to allow the families to grow their crops in the summer cropping season which started late last month.
Some of the families have already started moving to the land owned by the Forestry Commission which is opposite to Chemagora farms where they are supposed to be relocated.
Dr Chombo said Government felt that the families were being inconvenienced by being moved during the summer cropping season.
“The families want ample time to prepare to relocate. If they relocate now (during the summer cropping season) there won’t be enough time for them to prepare the land for tilling. We want those people to be relocated after the summer cropping season when they would have harvested their crops,” he said.
Government had earmarked 35 000 hectares of land in Chirisa Game Reserve for the resettlement of Chemagora families and other families from Gokwe South and North.
However, chiefs in Gokwe successfully objected, demanding their subjects to be given first priority to the land in question.
Chemagora families had illegally occupied about 54 000 hectares of black-owned farms and were caught up in a land row which saw their houses being torched by police after the land owners were granted an eviction order by the courts.
The families were last year left homeless after being evicted from the 48 farms and forced to live in makeshift houses by the roadside along Gokwe-Kwekwe highway for close to a month before the Government intervened.
Midlands Provincial Lands Officer Mr Joseph Shoko said the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement had approached Environment, Water and Climate Minister Cde Saviour Kasukuwere to gazette part of the land owned by Forestry Commission next to Chemagora farms to relocate the families.
“We recently approached Minister Kasukuwere to give us a piece of land in the area owned by Forestry Commission in Gokwe. We want Government to gazette the land so that the families would be relocated to the area.
“We had wanted the families to be resettled properly and permanently before the summer cropping season,” he said.
Online Reporter