Zanu PF secretary for administration, Obert Mpofu, has allegedly barred Siphosami Malunga and his business partners from entering Esidakeni Farm, which they bought from a white commercial farmer a couple of years ago.
According to Zephania Dhlamini, one of the owners of the farm, Mpofu sent his security guards and workers to evict their employees and started planting crops in areas targeted for maize and onion cultivation.
Dhlamini said, “Mpofu has deployed armed people at the farm who are not allowing us to access the farm. We are under siege despite the fact that he was ordered by the High Court to leave the farm. We are seeing a situation where a senior ruling party is defying the courts. We have been locked out of the farm which belongs to us. We have to go back to the courts once again.
An irate Dhlamini further said, “This is not right. This has to stop because someone is taking our farm by force. We are not happy about this.”
Mpofu told VOA Zimbabwe Service that he has nothing to do with what is currently going on at Esidakeni Farm.
He said, “I don’t know what they are talking about.”
Mpofu recently told Dhlamini and his partners to shut up because he was allocated part of the farm by the government.
Another Zimbabwean, Dumisani Madzivanyati, who also occupied the farm and was ordered to leave by the High Court, is still carrying out farming activities at Esidakeni Farm.
Dlamini co-owns the farm with Charles Moyo and Malunga, who is a son of liberation icon, Sydney Malunga, who died in a mysterious car accident a couple of years ago. Sydney Malunga was laid to rest at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.