BY VICFALLS REPORTER
The High Court has stopped the eviction of more than 100 Hwange villagers from their ancestral land to make way for a Formula One grade motor racing course.
Hwange Rural District Council leased 500 hectares of land to Stelix Civils to construct the race course that will have affected villagers from Chibode, Kachecheti and Nemananga wards.
Bulawayo High Court Judge Justice Evangelista Kabasa stopped the evictions after the villagers with help from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) challenged the lease agreement, saying the development will disrupt their way of life.
“The villagers argued that they were not consulted and were not offered alternative land, hence Stelix Civils’ conduct amounts to arbitrary eviction, which violates provisions of section 74 of the constitution,” the ZLHR said.
“After being aggrieved by the decision of the Hwange Rural District Council, the more than 100 villagers in three villages of Chidobe, Kachechete and Nemanhanga engaged Josephat Tshuma of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who on 16 November 2021 filed an application at the Bulawayo High Court to review the decision by the Hwange Rural District Council to allocate 500 hectares of land to Stelix Civils as the proposed project was taking away a large chunk of their communal land and effectively taking over their grazing area.
“On 15 September 2022, Justice Kabasa ruled that the decision made by the local authority to allocate 500 hectares of land to Stelix Civils was unlawful.”
Kabasa said council had no authority to allocate land to Stelix Civils to establish the racing course.
“Accordingly, Justice Kabasa set aside the Hwange Rural District Council’s decision to grant a lease agreement to Stelix Civils for the construction of a racing course and declared that any actions and conduct that had been taken by the local authority following the granting of a lease agreement to Stelix Civils, are invalid,” the ZLHR added.