The name of former Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has surfaced in the Stoneridge demolition saga after land occupiers allegedly relied on an offer letter bearing his name in a failed court challenge against eviction from a privately owned property.
According to Taru Innocent, executive assistant to the property owner, the disputed 20-hectare property belongs to Downberry Marketing, which acquired it through a private sale in 2011 after the previous owner failed to service a bank loan and the bank seized and sold the land.
The company says title deeds were duly transferred, and the property was later used for business operations, including shoe manufacturing and hardwood timber distribution.
Between 2012 and 2018, the property supported more than 50 direct jobs and additional downstream and upstream economic activity.
Trouble reportedly began in 2018 when a group identifying itself as war veterans demanded access through the premises to Seke Road. After being denied access, the group allegedly pulled down prefabricated walls and created its own passage.
In 2019, more than 20 people were allegedly found holding a meeting inside the premises. When a company worker approached them, they allegedly declared that the land belonged to them and that they were moving in.
The company reported the matter to Southlea Police Post, but the occupation continued, triggering a long eviction battle.
The owner’s representatives say the occupiers disrupted business operations, closed the gate, blocked employees from entering and looted stock, including shoes that had been manufactured and were awaiting distribution.
An eviction order was granted in October 2020, but the process was delayed by Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, which suspended evictions.
During that period, the original group allegedly expanded to 74 occupiers, who then parcelled out the land and sold stands to other people. Some of the new structures were allegedly rented out to tenants.
When eviction notices were re-served after lockdown restrictions were lifted, the occupiers mounted a legal challenge, arguing that the property was State land.
They allegedly produced an offer letter said to have been signed by Kasukuwere.
However, the court dismissed the document after the ministry reportedly said it had no knowledge or record of the letter.
A second challenge, based on claims that the property had been gazetted, also failed after the Surveyor General’s office confirmed that although some parts of Stoneridge were gazetted, the specific property in dispute was not.
Innocent said the order to vacate was never overturned.
Further legal challenges, including a 2025 challenge to the title deed, were dismissed. The occupants were then served with fresh notices to vacate.
“On the first day, we served those cited on the court papers. But on the day of serving, we realised that within the same week there were more people. We ended up giving everyone we saw, to make sure everyone received the notification,” Innocent said.
The sheriff later sought police escort before the evictions began on June 2.
Harare South MP Trymore Kanopula was reportedly informed about two weeks before the demolitions as a courtesy and asked to advise his constituents that eviction was imminent.
The property owner’s representatives say the affected people fell into three groups: original occupiers, people who bought from them and tenants renting structures.
Some allegedly admitted they had heard the land belonged to a Chinese investor.
“Takambonzwa kuti ndepemuChina pano,” one affected person was quoted as saying.
The property owner says the occupiers later wrote offering to buy the land at US$5 per square metre, payable over five years, after losing the court processes.
“What I find ironic is that after they lost all the processes, they wrote to us offering to buy the land,” Innocent said.
The case has again raised questions over Zimbabwe’s chaotic urban land politics, where letters, party-linked claims and disputed allocations often leave ordinary people exposed to demolition after paying money to people with no legal authority to sell land.
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