The Sunday News
Mbongeni Msimanga Sunday News Correspondent
THE eviction of over 40 families at Willsgrove Farm and the demolition of their property has backfired on Radar Properties trading as MacDonald Bricks as it has turned out that the land does not belong to the listed entity but another company, Southern Quest Pvt Ltd. MacDonald Bricks evicted the families through a Messenger of Court on the strength of a default judgment it obtained at the Bulawayo magistrates court and was issued by Miss Meryleen Mtshina.
The 40 families occupying Willsgrove Farm were left homeless after the Deputy Sheriff and the police demolished their homesteads. They lost their houses, cash, livestock and dogs worth thousands of dollars at the farm which is about 12km outside the city along the Bulawayo-Gwanda road. The families watched helplessly as their chickens and turkeys were tied together in fours before being suffocated in a sack by the officials. The Deputy Sheriff and his team showed no remorse in their demolitions as they killed more than 2 000 chickens and a special breed of puppies in the process while the families’ household property was loaded into trucks and later dumped in a bushy area near Manningdale suburb.
However, in a dramatic twist of events, the surveyor-general advised the court that the farm did not belong to MacDonald Bricks and the families have since approached the magistrates’ courts seeking a condonation for late filing of their opposition papers to rescind the default judgment. The families also filed an ex parte application on Tuesday for a stay of execution barring MacDonald Bricks from continuing evicting them and were granted one on Wednesday by Bulawayo magistrate Ms Sithembiso Nyoni.
In his founding affidavit filed by their lawyer Mr David Mhiribidi, Obvious Nyika acting on behalf of the other families, said they should be allowed to file their opposition papers because they were not in willful default and also that it had since been established that the land they were staying on did not belong to MacDonald Bricks. He also said when MacDonald Bricks applied to the court for their eviction they instructed their lawyer Ms Caroline Mudenda to oppose the matter but she allegedly sat on their papers.
“The applicants (families) have been residing in that area for different periods which range between two (2) and forty (40) years. In 2014, the Respondent (Radar Properties) issued an application out of this honourable court under case number 8208/14. The Respondent in that application sought the eviction of all the Applicants herein and others who they had not ascertained,” submitted Mr Mhiribidi.
He said the 2014 judgment that was granted to Radar Properties to evict the settlers was erroneously granted and asked for the court to consider a rescission of the judgment.
“It is my humble belief that the judgment was indeed erroneously sought and granted. The applicants sought and obtained a surveyors report which clearly interprets the map and outlines the Respondents’ piece of land,” he said. Mr Mhiribidi said in view of the surveyor general’s report that the land did not belong to MacDonald Bricks the whole process was an abuse of the court.
“The surveyor’s report proves that the Respondents’ boundary of his land does extend or encroach to the property owned by Southern Quest (Pvt) LTD being Lot 2 subdivision T of the remaining extent of the Willsgrove Farm and Lot 1 Subdivision T of the remaining extent of Willsgrove owned by Niall Dudley Armstrong. “The action was an abuse of the process of the Honourable court. The court should look into the injustice causer by order of 2014. It seeks to evict over 300 families at a place on which the respondent does not hold title over,” Mr Mhiribidi said. The matter is still to be set down for hearing.
