Grace's land deal
Paul
Paul A
First Lady bought land below market price
Dumisani Ndlela
THE First Lady, Grace Mugabe, whose imposing Borrowdale
mansion has been caught up in the VIP housing scandal, acquired
the land on which the mansion sits from the state at a below market
price, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt.
Information obtained by the Independent indicates that Mrs Mugabe
bought the land, now stand number 415 Quinnington township (31
Armthwaite Road, Borrowdale) for $78 206 from the government as
it was originally state land.
But government evaluators, who said the land had been grossly
undervalued, had put the price at $570 000 for duty purposes.
This means the state was prejudiced of $491 794 or over 600% of
the purchase value of the land measuring 2,8729 hectares. Most of
the land in the Borrowdale area is prime land and is considered to
be among the most expensive in the capital.
Records belonging to the Highlands district office of the City Council
show the property as clearly marked "state land".
The property, whose transfer number is 8829/98, was officially
transferred to Mrs Mugabe after she registered it on September 29
1998 under her maiden name, Grace Marufu.
However, the property is not yet on the Harare City Council's property
roll. The city's valuation and estates division did not have details of
the divided property on their registers this week.
"Valuers assess the value of land and development and come up
with a value.
The information is put on a property roll for all properties in Harare for
rating purposes. The rating authority in the council is the city
treasurer," a source told the Independent. "This is one area through
which council is losing a lot of money. A lot of properties, including
new buildings, have not been valued and are not paying rates."
He said since the property was not on the roll, it meant no rates were
being paid to the council.
The only available information on Mrs Mugabe's properties at the
treasury department relates to stand 221 Quinnington township. The
property had an outstanding debt of only $509,25 for water rates. The
reference number for the property is 990954/520220.
A water connection was effected for stand 415 by the Ministry of
Public Construction which built the mansion. Council sources said
this should have been the responsibility of the council and they don't
know whether the meter is being read or not.
However, stand 221 is the property from which stand 415 was carved
out, according to documents in the possession of the Independent.
Three other stands carved from stand 221 are 413, 414 and a
remainder of the divided property which is not numbered. 413 was
allocated to Siyayi Muhnamu Utete, 414 to Nathan Masarakufa
Chivaura and his wife Farisai Lilian, and the remainder of the divided
stand to Mrs Mugabe.
The remainder has since been incorporated into stand 415.
Chivaura's property, 1,7340 hectares large, was valued by
government valuers at $515 000 yet only $64 200 was paid for it.
Utete paid $66 148 for his property, measuring 1,7268 hectares, yet
the real market value was $570 000.
Mrs Mugabe had paid $64 500 for the remaining piece of land worth
$560 000 and measuring 2,6131 hectares.
The total value of the properties was $2, 215 million yet only $273
054 was paid between the three landowners. This means the state
was prejudiced of a total of $1 941 946.
Two other properties which Mrs Mugabe wanted to register last year
were turned down by the Chief Registrar because they had failed to
comply with the laws and regulations governing the registration or
transfer of properties in the country.
Documents for the properties, whose deed of transfer numbers had
been given by the registrar of deeds office as 6036/98 and 6039/98,
were returned to her lawyers.
The Independent could not immediately establish the exact location
of the other properties which are also understood to be prime land in
the posh northern surbubs of Harare.
The controversial Quinnington mansion was built using pubilc funds
under a housing scheme mooted by the Ministry of Public
Construction and National Housing under minister Enos Chikowore.
Mrs Mugabe put the property on the market early last year but buyers
retreated because of the controversial circumstances under which
the mansion had been built.
She had reportedly put the mansion on the market at a price of $25
million.
Recently the Independent reported that Mrs Mugabe had paid $5 846
333 through the Attorney General's civil division after a stinging high
court judgement condemning the scheme as corrupt and illegal.
Efforts to get comment from the First Lady were fruitless as the
Director of Presidential Affairs, Lawrence Kamwe, refused to handle
questions referring the paper to the Information Department headed
by Chief Presidential Spokesman, George Charamba.
The Independent had contacted Kamwe to present questions to the
First Lady after the paper was referred to him by the Information
Department.
Ted Hamer
from way back - the archetype fat cat, greedy, conceited and crooked. It
seems that this crowd of rascals are getting more shameless in their
thievery day by day. Maybe they sense the writing is on the wall and sooner
or later the civilised world is going to say enough is enough, comrades. Ted
H.