Online Reporter
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
The President has spoken!
The law is clear! The master plans exist!
What we now require is collective will and decisive action.
This was the long and short of the Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Advocate Misheck Mugadza, as he addressed stakeholders during an indaba on illegal land allocations held at the Government Complex in Mutare on Wednesday morning.
What Minister Mugadza and the entire Manicaland team are doing is simply implementing what has been preached time and again.
For example, addressing the media in Harare at one point, the Permanent Secretary for Presidential Affairs and Devolution, Engineer Tafadzwa Muguti, said the Office of the President and Cabinet, working with the then Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, is determined to protect rural communities from exploitation by land barons and corrupt officials.
He said communal land belonged to the people and could not be sold under any circumstances.
“Our position is very clear that communal land is not for sale,” he said.
“We are noticing rampant and escalating invasions of land taking place across the country.”
For years, people have invaded spaces and erected structures without the due application and approval of the relevant Government and local authority offices.
The ultimate result of land invasions is haphazard settlements that negate even the basic principles of organised development, while denying rightful beneficiaries access to land and basic amenities such as grazing land.
Be that as it may, the chickens are coming home to roost.
Minister Mugadza was unequivocal.
“Allow me, at the outset, to appreciate President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has spoken strongly and unequivocally against the illegal parcelling out of land across Zimbabwe. The Government has already launched Operation ‘No to Land Barons and Illegal Settlements’, which, between January and mid-February 2024 alone, resulted in 3 775 arrests, of which 985 people were convicted.
“The President has made his position clear: illegal land allocations will not be tolerated under the Second Republic. Ladies and gentlemen, Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy (NDS2) places orderly spatial development, sustainable infrastructure and a healthy environment at the core of our national transformation agenda,” said Minister Mugadza.
It is beyond reproach that haphazard settlements can never allow organised development to take place and, regrettably, some of the disastrous effects of illegal settlements are seen or felt long after people have settled illegally.
Minister Mugadza said: “It explicitly calls for modernised local governance, improved urban and rural planning, and strong institutions capable of enforcing the rule of law. The proliferation of Sabhuku deals directly contradicts the spirit and letter of NDS2, and threatens the attainment of Vision 2030. We cannot build the Zimbabwe we envision on a foundation of disorder, illegal settlements and fraudulent land transactions.”
Currently, and in recent years, Zimbabwe has been seized with the Vision 2030 agenda.
Ideally, Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 is a transformative national development agenda launched by the Government to elevate the country into a prosperous, empowered upper-middle-income society.
It aims to achieve broad-based economic growth, create widespread job opportunities, and improve the overall quality of life for all citizens.
With haphazard illegal settlements, this can never be attained, and Minister Mugadza understands that.
“Every unplanned settlement that sprouts in Manicaland is a setback to Vision 2030. It burdens our infrastructure, degrades our environment and diverts resources that should be invested in productive development. Our priority in this spirit is to ensure that we achieve planned, safe, secure and modern settlements, and what is currently happening negates this commitment,” he noted.
It is common cause that the land reform programme was executed as a means to have more people active on the land for increased food production. Therefore, when illegal land invasion and allocation sprout, there is bound to be a reversal of the aims and aspirations of the programme.
Minister Mugadza said: “One of the objectives of the land reform programme was to promote food security and productivity on our land. When illegal and haphazard settlements are promoted, some in grazing areas, the effect is to undermine the national objectives of the land reform programme.”
Given that the law exists, enemies of progress can only face the music, and Minister Mugadza set the record straight.
“Those who engage in Sabhuku deals expose themselves to serious criminal liability under the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Chapter 9:23], including fraud under Section 136, extortion under Section 134, and criminal abuse of duty as a public officer under Section 174.
“Furthermore, land management authority in Zimbabwe is vested in the President, who oversees proper allocation through the Ministry of Lands, supported by district and provincial lands committees, which should remain functional, vibrant, practical and proactive.
“The presence of the JOC in our lands committees is to ensure that these structures have teeth where these breaches continue. JOC, as the law enforcement machinery on the ground, should thus fully play its part to ensure that Vision 2030 and the land reform programme are not dragged back by people who are brazenly breaching the law.
“I also remind our DDCs, who chair the district lands committees, that these committees are accountable to the provincial lands committee,” concluded Minister Mugadza.
Haphazard settlements pose a direct threat to the transformative aspirations of Vision 2030 and NDS 2, as they institutionalise disorderly spatial development that overwhelms already overstretched public infrastructure.
The proliferation of unplanned structures diverts scarce fiscal resources away from critical investment in health, education and industrialisation, while accelerating environmental degradation through widespread deforestation, pollution of water sources and the irreversible loss of prime agricultural land.
Such practices contravene NDS2’s core commitments to modernised local governance, sustainable infrastructure and the consistent enforcement of the rule of law.
They also undermine land reform objectives by displacing lawful beneficiaries and encroaching on designated grazing areas.
Consequently, agricultural productivity declines, institutional credibility is weakened, and both domestic and foreign investment in planned development is deterred, delaying the country’s transition to the prosperous, empowered upper-middle-income society envisaged under Vision 2030.
