Gushungo Holdings, former president Robert Mugabe’s family business has refused to be evicted from Smithfield Farm in Mazowe. Instead, the company through its security officer Mkhululi Nyoni and lawyer Advocate Thabani Mpofu have urged the High Court to discharge the provisional eviction order. Gushungo Holdings was ordered off the land by High Court judge Justice Happias Zhou after small-scale gold miners Shepherd Nyazvigo, Bright Mawonga and Mohammed Rezwani Khan had filed an urgent application.
Nyoni is arguing that the court dealt with the matter irregularly as he had not been served with the applicant’s court papers. In his papers, Nyoni argues,
The fact of the matter, however, is that the notice of set-down was never so served. As a result, though the provisional order was granted in default, it is clear that it was afforded as a result of the irregularity by non-service. The court was itself taken advantage of. It is for that reason that the matter ought to be heard on an urgent basis so that second respondent’s (Gushungo Holdings) position is also considered in court.
In particular, the chief security officer is a non-legal persona and proceedings brought under such circumstances are invalid. The application ought to be struck off the roll for that reason. Further, none of the mining authorities were cited in this mining dispute.
The miners who claim that they were evicted from the land by Nyoni and the ZRP returned to the land and resumed their activities in November after the fall of Mugabe.
More: NewsDay
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