Supreme Court under the spotlight in case involving arrested white safari operator

HARARE – The Supreme Court in Zimbabwe is under the spotlight as it prepares to pass judgement in a case in which a local safari operator risks losing millions of dollars after the annulment of its 25-year lease of Chewore North Area located at the confluence of the Zambezi and Chewore rivers.

The Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Chinembiri Bhunu, Justice George Chiweshe and Justice Joseph Musakwa on Tuesday 22 July presided over an appeal filed by a safari operator, Suscaden Investments, which challenged a High Court ruling which annulled its lease given by the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority on the grounds that it was not signed by the responsible minister as required by the law.

The Supreme Court determination will be key as it highlights issues around the rule of law, property rights, and protection of investment, as well as the ease of doing business.

Investors closely watch such cases and the determination will also have an impact on the government’s ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’ mantra.

The Supreme Court appeal follows a ruling by High Court judge, Justice Tawanda Chitapi, issued on March 21, 2025, under case number HH192-25, after a legal challenge brought by ZimParks and the Minister of Environment, Climate and Wildlife.

The then Minister of Environment, Climate Change, Tourism, and Hospitality (the ministry title at that point), Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, had denied ever signing the agreement.

However, in its appeal against the High Court ruling, Suscaden Investments argued the judge erred and grossly misdirected himself in failing to find that Muchinguri-Kashiri had signed the lease agreement when the evidence showed her genuine signature was attached to it.

Suscaden Investments is run by 72-year old Terry Kelly.

Suscaden Investments argued the court a quo erred and grossly misdirected itself in dismissing evidence given by ZimParks’s former deputy director to the effect that he had received the lease agreement bearing the minister’s signature through the usual channels and instructed that it be handed to the appellant after payment of the annual fees.

It further argued the High Court got it wrong in failing to draw an adverse inference from Muchinguri-Kashiri’s (the second respondent) failure to testify and avail herself for cross-examination after hearing the evidence of the former ZimParks’s deputy director

The safari operator argued that the court was wrong to place the onus on it to show that the minister had signed the lease when ZimParks and the minister (first and second applicants) bore the onus that the second respondent had not signed the lease agreement.

The safari operator also said the court misled itself by disregarding that ZimParks and the minister additionally recognised that there was a valid lease through sustained rental acceptance for over five years in which three different ministers were in office.

In his ruling, handed on 21 March 2025, Justice Chitapi declared the agreement hammered out in 2017 a nullity largely because the lease agreement failed to meet the statutory requirement of the ministerial concurrence necessary for the lease’s validity under the Parks and Wildlife Management Act.

Central to the case was the alleged absence of the minister’s signature on the lease agreement, a statutory condition precedent for its validity.

The Minister at the time, Muchinguri-Kashiri, denied ever signing the agreement. However, the safari operator’s own lease agreement bears the signature of the minister.

The dispute around the safari project has seen Suscade Investments managing director, Kelly, going through torrid times.

Kelly was controversially arrested and detained in remand prison for days on allegations of stealing motion cameras left as bait for hunting in an area where such activities are forbidden.

Despite handing over the cameras to ZimParks rangers at Chewore Lodge and asking them to investigate the issue, they declined to take action and also refused to accept the cameras and use it as an exhibit.

Kelly was shocked after he was arrested and charged with theft of the camera.

He was, however, subsequently acquitted by the magistrate courts on the basis that there was no substance to the allegations against him.

During the court hearing, it was sensationally revealed by his lawyer, Everson Chatambudza, that police officers who arrested Kelly had been flown to Kanyemba by owners of a rival safari in the Zambezi Valley.

At the time of the arrest, outspoken politician and social justice proponent Temba Mliswa accused controversial millionaire businessman Muller Conrad “Billy” Rautenbach of being behind Kelly’s arrest.

“Those behind the persecution of Chewore Lodge owner Terry Kelly have now had him arrested over some concocted crime. It’s all propaganda for those in the know because this is the work of Rautenbach,” Mliswa wrote on X

Economist Eddie Cross wrote on 28 March 2025 Rautenbach was strongly opposed to Kelly’s project.

“The hunting concession in the adjacent area is held by a well-known Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach. From the very start of this exercise, he strongly opposed the award of the lease to the new investor and has consistently tried to have him removed,” Cross wrote on his online platform.