Zibusiso Dlamini
EX-COMBATANT John Gazi has threatened Matabeleland North Provincial Affairs minister Richard Moyo with court action accusing him of plotting to seize his Honey Bird Kop Farm.
This is not the first time that Gazi has been found in a catch 22 situation battling for the control of his property which is located about 40km along the Bulawayo-Plumtree Highway.
In 2015, he was arrested after he allegedly deflated tyres of a vehicle belonging to Zanu PF supporters who were reportedly trying to invade his farm.
Gazi, who has since then lost some hectares of his property to ‘invaders’, claims he was given the rights to the property in 2005 arguing the farm was delisted from resettlement purposes.
However, in the latest development, reports are that suspected members of the state security organ, CIO, army and Lands and Agricultural Resettlement ministry have been offered portions of the farm in Umguza district since 2017.
Gazi has taken aim at the minister who he fingered as the one behind his woes.
“The minister has been lying over the state of the farm. In his recent interview, he went to make very serious allegations against the disposed war veteran, Zipra veteran and farmer that he is a front for white farmers.
“It is now shocking to hear from someone who never went to any struggle and did not liberate the farms talking about this. They think that they are untouchable and they are above the law but I will meet him in court, Gazi told journalists in Bulawayo.
“This time around as a believer in the new dispensation which said it will get rid of the criminals, I shall provide the evidence to prove that he is one of the criminals around the President. In reality, the farm he talks about was gazetted but later removed from the list of gazetted farms in what is called de-listing. Maybe he is not aware of de-listed farms.”
Gazi is one of the war veterans that led the invasion of white owned farms in 2000, a development which saw him acquiring the farm in question.
