A commission investigating the alleged rot at Harare City Council has been told that controversial businessman Phillip Chiyangwa was allocated land at a leafy suburb in the capital that was meant for a road.
The land is now at the centre of a fierce dispute between Chiyangwa and some Chinese investors that built a high-end complex.
Zvenyika Chawatama, the council’s director of works, last week told the Justice Maphios Cheda-led commission of inquiry into the affairs of the Harare City Council since 2017 that he made a mistake when he allowed the Chinese-owned firm JC Delonics to develop the land.
“It was an error on the city council part,” Chawatama said.
The commission was told that the land in dispute was reserved for road expansion and that Chiyangwa’s claim to the land was questionable.
There was a deed of settlement between Chiyangwa and city council involving the land.
Chawatama was questioned if it was council policy to sell land reserved for road expansion to people and he said it was not the policy of council.
The commission also heard that there was a possibility that Chiyangwa’s Pinnacle Holdings was not entitled to JC Delonics’ piece of land in dispute as it was reserved for road expansion.
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JC Delonics is owned by Jesse Zhang and her Zimbabwean co-director Nicholas Mandeya.
The two run JC Delonics, which owns a restaurant at 617 Windmill Lane in Helensvale.
Mandeya in his testimony said Chiyangwa was in the habit of threatening them through phone calls and once allegedly told the Chinese to go back to their country.
He said Chiyangwa bullied his company. The businessman and politician allegedly told them that he was ‘untouchable’.
The company is fighting to recover more than US$200 000 spent on constructing a car park on council land before it was stopped on allegations that the land belonged to Chiyangwa’s Pinnacle Holdings.
Truth Diggers, the investigative journalism arm of Alpha Media Holdings, first reported the tussle between Chiyangwa and Delonics in July.
Documents obtained by Truth Diggers said the City of Harare granted Delonics rights to set up shop, before cancelling clusters of permits four months into the project in November last year.
The Chinese investors reported the matter to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and also wrote to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s office as they felt powerless.
