Lupane Local Board in stand scandal

Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter

A SOUTH African-based businessman is up in arms against the Lupane Local Board, after discovering that it allegedly sanctioned the sale of a stand that he purchased in 2015 to another prospective home owner.

Mr Vusani Dlamini, who owns several properties in Lupane and other surrounding areas, got the shock of his life last week when he visited Zimbabwe and discovered that a stand in Lupane Township that he purchased in 2015, now not only belonged to another person, but had already been developed up to window level.

In an interview, Mr Dlamini said that despite availing documents, seen by Sunday News, that showed that he had indeed purchased the stand from one  Ms Thatshi Dube with consent of the local authority in 2015, he was dismayed to learn that he had since been “replaced” by another buyer.

“I arrived there with my Agreement of Sale for the stand and I asked them what was happening because I had heard that my stand was being developed by someone else. I was then told that the stand number on my agreement of sale was for the wrong stand number and this puzzled me because I did not know that such a thing was possible because I had finished all the processes that one undertakes when paying for a piece of land, including the processes with ZIMRA,” he said.

Mr Dlamini said despite notifying officials at the local board that he wanted to see the paperwork that he filed with them when he purchased the stand, he was told that his documents could not be found. This is despite that his legal representatives supplied copies of the same documents, also seen by Sunday News, that proved that he indeed bought the stand from Ms Thatshi Dube.

“I asked them to check my file and they said that there’s nothing to my name but instead, the new buyer is the one whose documents that they possess. I couldn’t understand this because I was the first buyer and I handed in my documents in that same office that was now telling me that the stand had another buyer who came after me. I wanted to see the papers that I handed in at the local board when I bought the stand because after I finished with my lawyers, I filed the paperwork with them. Everything was done correctly,” he said.

Despite a letter from Dube-Tachiona and Tsvangirai, Mr Dlamini’s legal representatives, requesting for more documents that would show that the same stand had been sold to a Ms Thembelani Ngwenya, they had been rebuffed by the local authority.  The letter, dated, 26 April, read: “We refer to the above and confirm that we represent Vusani Patrick Dlamini, kindly note our interest thereof. We have been advised by our client that  Ms Thatshi Dube sold Stand 856 Lupane Township to another buyer after having sold the same stand to our client Vusani Patrick Dlamini on 8 December as per the attached agreement of sale. Kindly note that our client is the first buyer to purchase Stand 856 Lupane Township from Thatshi Dube. We therefore request the original agreement of sale filed at your offices between Thatshi Dube and the second buyer.”

Mr Dlamini said he was instituting further legal proceedings as he felt that this was a case of blatant corruption. He said on his visit to the local board last week, he was told that the property he purchased from Mr Dube was stand 854, despite the fact that none of the paperwork he filed was under that number.

“I consulted lawyers and they said we should inquire if the person that sold me the stand indeed made a mistake because they have two stands in the same vicinity. I gave them the lawyers’ number but they were reluctant to give us any paperwork on any of these stands which was a great source of disappointment. For me this is a matter of corruption now because I feel like my file was pulled away for that stand to be resold to another party. If this is indeed a case of corruption, I feel like a syndicate that needs to be exposed because it is giving the local board a bad name because you wonder how many people are victims of such actions. They can expert legal action from my lawyers on this matter,” he said.

Efforts to get a comment from the Lupane Local Board were fruitless.