*Mnangagwa Ally In Land Grab Scandal* *_Billy Rautenbach Seizes Springs Farm_* _By Kelvin Jakachira_ PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa is reportedly behind the imminent eviction of a number of productive indigenous farmers, including war veterans and the reigning young farmer of the year from Goromonzi, Mashonaland East province, to pave the way for his close business associate, controversial multi-millionaire tycoon Muller Conrad "Billy" Rautenbach, to embark on an urban development project on the vast swathe of fertile land. Multiple sources, including government officials and farmers, told The NewsHawks Mnangagwa is supporting Rautenbach to the hilt in his land grab which will disrupt productive agricultural activities at Springs Farm, while also undermining new farmers who were now making a valuable contribution to their communities and the economy, apart from feeding themselves and their families. The move also highlights the problem of title and lack of security of tenure on the land under government's chaotic land reform programme which started in 2000. Further, the dispute throws the spotlight on brazen violation of property rights, trampling upon due process and serious lack of protection for investment in Zimbabwe, as well as ease of doing business issues. This is all happening against a backdrop of open high-level cronyism and patronage - involving the President and his close associate - at the nexus of politics and business. Mnangagwa and Rautenbach are longtime close associates. They have a close association dating back to the late 1990s. Their interface is mainly politics and business. Rautenbach’s controversial reputation stems from his use of proximity to government leaders to gain favourable access to high offices and business opportunities. A well-known Zimbabwean business mogul, Rautenbach has vast interests in diverse and various sectors of the economy, spanning mining, transport, agriculture, wildlife conservancy, real estate and energy or biofuels. Government even made a specific policy for mandatory ethanol fuel blending in a joint-venture with him, showing his power and influence. His business vast tentacles once stretched so far beyond Zimbabwe’s borders - across the region - that he was called the “Napoleon of Africa”. Yet Rautenbach has suffered major setbacks, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Africa, in his colourful business life. Despite all the setbacks, Rautenbach has maintained a firm and impactful presence in Zimbabwe's volatile business landscape, with interests in various sectors and still keen to expand his investment footprint across the economy. Farmers at Springs Farm told The NewsHawks that they are currently under siege from government which is pushing to remove them at the behest of Rautenbach, firmly backed by Mnangagwa. Rautenbach has also taken the law into his own hands to secure the farm, farmers say. The affected farmers were settled at Springs Farm in the early 2002 and are involved in productive farming activities such as horticulture, wheat, maize, soya beans, potatoes and livestock production. The indigenous farmers include Joseph Macheka, a veteran Zanu PF Central Committee member, retired army major Alfred Chademana, war veteran Mangisai Katsande, war collaborator Tamo Hove Muza and a top young farmer, Uniko Chikomo, among others. Chikomo was among the 50 young farmers recognised last month for their resilience and hard work at the 11th edition of the National Excellence, Pacesetters and Young Farmers Awards. The awards were organised by the Federation of Young Farmers Clubs of Zimbabwe in collaboration with the youth desk at the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Development and Vocational Training. Chikomo won the overall pacesetter of the year award and also scooped the young horticulture farmer of the year award. Despite all his remarkable achievements, Chikomo now faces eviction anytime from Springs Farm, together with the other farmers to pave the way for the buccaneering Rautenbach’s urban development project. The distraught farmers said in separate interviews that when they sought intervention of the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Anxious Masuka, they were taken aback as he, after avoiding them for sometime, told them he was merely acting on instructions from Mnangagwa to give the land to Rautenbach. The farmers said their imminent eviction was coming as a shock because Mnangagwa had promised that war veterans would not be removed from their farms. They sought intervention of War Veterans minister Monica Mavhunga, who despite objecting to their eviction, was of no help. She could not overrule her principal and appointing authority - Mnangagwa. The farmers said they now hope to meet Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga as part of their last-ditch efforts to salvage the situation and rescue their livelihoods. Asked to shed light and give insight into Rautenbach's intended project, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development permanent secretary Obert Jiri declined saying: “I think you should talk to Billy Rautenbach. He is a free man and he can explain to you circumstances around his project and conditions given to him.” However, Rautenbach declined to comment. “I am sorry, I can’t talk to you," he said. Narrating the dramatic sequence of events to The NewsHawks, one of the farmers said: “In 2023 after elections, we started receiving calls from the Ministry of Lands asking for details of the farm, which we provided willingly and innocently as we thought those were normal government checks for official and administrative reasons. At one point, I even invited them over to see what we were doing as the farm is highly-productive and fully-utilised.” The farmer added: “Our suspicions started rising when calls began increasing and becoming questionable. I engaged some colleagues who had previously given me inside information if we would now soon be evicted to pave way for Rautenbach. I could not believe it as I had heard the President saying no farm of a war veteran or their dependents would be taken. “Surprisingly, last year on 6 May, Ministry of Lands officials from the province called all of us to notify us of their intention to withdraw offer letters. We asked them why that was happening, but they said they had no answers because they will not speak." Another farmer said when they requested to meet Masuka, he initially refused to engage. “We continued trying to see the minister and he continued ducking and diving. On 1 July last year, we were then served withdrawal letters. We continued probing and knocking at the Ministry of War Veterans' doors. Minister Mavhunga eventually agreed to see us and we spoke, and she then wrote a letter to the Lands ministry. We followed up with the Ministry of Lands again. This time, we spoke to the Permanent Secretary, Jiri, who told us that our farms were given to Rautenbach.” The farmer said when they eventually met Masuka, they were further shattered as the minister revealed to them that he was merely acting on the President’s orders to give the farm to Rautenbach. “Masuka called us and said he had heard that we wanted to see him. He apologised for how some things had been handled. But he said he had received an instruction from the President that our farms must be given Rautenbach,” said the farmer. “Naturally, we queried why our government would be used to take our farms and we told him that it was tantamount to reversal of the land reform to remove bona fide black farmers to pave way for Rautenbach who already has land anyway." Another farmer said the issue was raised again in a meeting between the Ministry of War Weterans and the Ministry of Lands. “The Ministry of War Veterans said that the issue of Springs Farm is not a genuine urban development case, but a smokescreen to rob people of their land and give it to the powerful. But the Ministry of Lands said they had no power as it was an instruction from the highest office on the land that farms must be taken and given to Rautenbach,” the farmer said. In a letter to Mavhunga, farmers pleaded with her office to help and save them from eviction, but now accusing Masuka of colluding with Rautenbach. They wrote: “We write to make a formal complaint of corruption against the Minister of Lands Anxious Masuka and Billy Rautenbach. "We are a group of farmers comprising war veterans, war collaborators, ex-detainees and orphans that were legally resettled at Springs Farm in Goromonzi. We have been here since 2002, under the 20% quota reserved for war veterans. We have been working very hard and we are productive with significant milestone production records to prove that for the past 22 years. Further to that, some of our farmers have entered into joint-ventures with investors and others with banks who have poured in a lot of money. The government of Zimbabwe, through the Ministry of Lands, is a party to these joint-ventures; the current one was signed in 2019 and is to run for a period of 10 years till 2029. Furthermore, one of us applied for a change of use on his farm to build a school on a part that is not suitable for farming and it was granted. Current actions by the Minister of Lands are illegal, a blatant disregard of contracts and investors. How does the international community of investors look at us when we cannot protect our own domestic investments?" The farmers said they have invested a lot, including in land clearing, modernising and expansion of irrigation systems, purchase of agricultural equipment and implements, building of livestock herds, construction of farm houses, modern farm sheds and their own farm houses. “Around 2017, Rautenbach started sending proxies to us saying that he wants to buy us out of the farm and offer us alternative land elsewhere. We rejected this out rightly, but he kept sending his proxies, whose identities we can disclose," said the farmers in the letter to the war veterans minister. “In 2022, he then came personally to the farm and made the same offer, we rejected it. The same year he then saw one of us, retired Major Chademana building his house, he trespassed into the farm and began to harass him, asking why he was building his house there. “Cde Chademana asked Rautenbach where his interest lay on activities taking place on the farm and whether he had become a representative of government. From that day going onwards Rautenbach began to harass Chademana, flying his helicopter at tree level over his house, flying drones over the house and into our farms and even taking pictures. “In 2023, just before elections, Rautenbach drove down Shamva Road with his employees, he had a piece of paper with him and would ask people along the way of different farmers who are at Springs Farm and take down their names. One of his employees then came and told us that we should be careful as Rautenbach was now after our farms. Coincidentally, after a week, a Brigadier-General Morris Masunungure was then sent by Minister Masuka to the farm to ascertain who was at the land, we gave him all the information he needed and he departed. We then had a meeting as farmers as this was odd, also noting the advances Rautenbach had made in the past and the information we had received from his employees.” Farmers said in 2024 they got calls from the Lands ministry to verify details that were on our offer letters. “We continued to ask what the matter was about, but officials were not forthcoming. We then got access to Brigadier-General Masunungure to ask him what was really taking place, he then told us that our farm was to be handed over to Rautenbach and we would receive letters in the next coming weeks. Surely, we then received Letters of an Intention to withdraw our Offer Letters. Ministry officials sent included Mukoyi, a provincial lands officer, and Ben Maziofa from our Goromonzi lands offices. The pretext used for the withdrawal was purported to be, 'conversion of the land from agricultural to urban and re-planning'. We tried to ask important questions, but they just said they were not equipped to answer any of our questions as they had just been sent. We sent them to request for a meeting with the minister, but he refused to see us on numerous occasions. “We responded to the intention to withdraw offer letters within the required 7-day period giving vast and different reasons why our offer letters should not be withdrawn. After a month, the minister wrote back to us withdrawing our offer letters in July. “Billy continued to harass us this time telling us to leave his farm, he even went as far as telling one of our joint-venture partners to pack up and leave his farm.” The farmers said intimidatory tactics were being employed “to have us quickly vacate the farm with Cde Chademana having two incidents of robbery and having to flee for life.” Rautenbach was born in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1959. His father, Wessels, owned a trucking company, Wheels of Africa, that steadily expanded across transport-starved sub-Saharan Africa. Instead, he took over his father’s business, moved it to Johannesburg, South Africa, and built a rather ordinary company into a labyrinth of some 150 companies across the continent and beyond, ranging from trucking to farming, cobalt, platinum and coal mining, car assembly and distribution, including Volvo trucks and Hyundai cars. His experience in South Africa was not good. But before he fled the country in 1999, Rautenbach was accused by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) of stealing his own company’s cars, bribing customs officials, involvement in the murder of a business rival, gun-running and diddling gtax authorities. But as he likes to point out, he was never found guilty of anything. At the height of his problems, South African investigators had raided his Johannesburg offices and his mansion, seizing three truckloads of documents. Rautenbach fled South Africa in a huff. His South African companies were placed in liquidation, leaving debts in excess of R1 bilion. A private jet, a helicopter, a house and six apartments in Johannesburg, a Cape wine farm and another farm in KwaZulu-Natal were among the assets seized. This would be only the first of many punishing blows Rautenbach would suffer – blows that, remarkably, did nothing to stop him. Ten years later in 2009, he her would reach a deal with the South African authorities: charges were dropped in return for his company pleading guilty to tax offences and paying off a wrist-slap fine of R40 million. Due to his ties with the late former president Robert Mugabe's regime and Mnangagwa, Rautenbach, a politically exposed person, was slapped with United States and European Union sanctions in 2008. Washingron DC described him as one of Mugabe’s “cronies” and accused him of providing “support to senior regime officials during Zimbabwe’s intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo". His links with Mnangagwa have deep roots and were further deepened during DRC War from 1998-2003. While Mnangagwa was Mugabe's point man in the DRC, Rautenbach entered into a joint-venture for cobalt and copper mining with the state-owned Gecamines under slain Congolese leader Laurent Kabila assassinated by his security aid in 2001 before a major fallout. Kabila accused him of stealing from him before he was killed. Mnangagwa and Rautenbach's relationship came in handy for Mugabe in 2008 to rescue him and the ruling Zanu PF after they had lost elections in March that year. Rautenbach engineered a controversial cash-for-minerals platinum deal in which he provided a US$100 million war chest to government and Zanu PF to fight the elections in a violent and bloody run-off which Mugabe won through a smash-and-grab campaign. Mugabe had lost the first round of polling to the late opposition MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Zanu PF had been defeated by the MDC-T. This led to a Government of National Unity between 2009 and 2013. As a result, Mnangagwa and Rautenbach have been closely scrutinised due to their history of controversies and deals. And once again they are back in the spotlight due to the Springs Farm battle, with Rautenbach emerging on top due to his high-profile political connections and proximity to power in Harare. *Knowledge Is Power That Is Best Shared. Please share and follow our Citizens Movement Radio Channel using the link below* https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VafxZGK8F2pNHgZGUP1B