Zanu PF Land Barons Scam Residents near Stone­Ridge farm in Harare South

Hundreds of desperate home­seekers in Harare South have lost over US$5000 to local Zanu PF land barons. The victims, most of them Zanu PF supporters said this happened last week when unidentified Zanu PF officials congregated “us” near Stone­Ridge farm in Harare South, and said they had been given land by the party for us to build houses .

They said the officials then demanded US$10 from each member which they said was for administration purposes. “They had a letter which had a Zanu­PF date stamp as well as the party logo and that alone convinced us that they were genuine and they said the fees were for processing of the required  paper work ,” said one of the Zanu PF supporters who were duped.

“What then surprised us was that they came with a person who they said was a surveyor who was very quick to allocate us some stands during that night. “The surveyor said that the area had been approved by the local council and he was had been hired by the party to assure us that indeed the area was suitable for building residential stands,” said another victim. The victims said that they came to know that they had been duped after one of “us” made efforts to confirm with Zanu PF head offices where he was told that the party had not allocated any farm for residents to build their houses.

The problem we have now is how to recover our money because one of the officials who addressed us is saying that they took the money to other chefs in the party who have links with the province and us being ordinary party members we can not go to the HQ alone,” he said.

Efforts to get a comment from Zanu PF political commissar for Harare Province, Shadreck Mashayamombe, were fruitless as his mobile number could not be reached. Last month Zanu PF mobilized party youths who gathered at the Zanu PF head quarters where they promised to give them some residential stands in Harare. At the meeting, the party said that they had identified several farms in peri­urban Harare which they would allocate to their party supporters for the purposes of building houses.