ZIMBABWE: First Lady expropriates land for family university

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace, has expropriated land from a private company to build a family university, among other educational facilities. The university will be located in Mazowe, where she is running an orphanage and has built a primary school.

Last year, Grace Mugabe appealed to the governor of Mashonaland province for more land to expand the area around the primary school, on the grounds that more projects were in the offing, including an institution of higher learning.

Amai Mugabe Junior School opened its doors for the first time in January this year with an enrolment of 97 pupils, and became the first primary school to teach the Chinese language.



Last month Interfresh Company, which shares a boundary with Mugabe’s orphanage, confirmed that its 1,600 hectare Mazowe Citrus Estate had been taken over to make way for the new developments.

“Shareholders are advised that the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement has advised the company that a portion measuring 1,599.7 hectares, which was part of Mazowe Citrus Estate, has been allocated to another party,” said the company in a statement.

Interfresh said the portion that had been taken comprised 46% of Mazowe Citrus Estate’s total arable land, and represented 52% of the value of its immovable and biological assets. The company added that its 2013 projections were that 30% of revenue would come from that portion.

The company has lodged an appeal with the ministry, but its chances of success are slim.

Zimbabwe’s Standard reported recently that plans were now in motion for the construction of the university.

“Chinese contractors have already started pegging land in preparation for the construction of the proposed Robert Mugabe University, Grace Mugabe Hospital and other educational facilities,” the newspaper reported.

The Chinese have propped up Mugabe’s regime. Before the formation in 2009 of an inclusive government that incorporated Mugabe’s political foe, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai is now prime minister, the Chinese vetoed Western-sponsored sanctions against him at the United Nations.

Last year Chinese professors were seconded to teach Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party’s provincial leaders on a number of subjects, including politics.

In return the Chinese, whom Mugabe refers to as “all-weather friends”, have been awarded lucrative mining contracts, especially in the diamond sector.

It comes as no surprise that the Mugabe family has decided to build a university, since he is nearing the end of his political career due to old age.

The president, who turned 89 on Thursday, is a highly educated man with numerous degrees whose focus on education made Zimbabwe Africa’s most literate nation.

But his disregard for the rule of law and property rights, epitomised by the take-over of a private company’s citrus estate to build a university, has driven away investors and caused massive company closures that have resulted in up to 90% unemployment – a development that has seen many graduates failing to get employment in the country.

In a classified cable, former United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell once wrote that Mugabe had survived for so long because he was cleverer and more ruthless than any other politician in the country.

But Dell argued Mugabe was fundamentally hampered by several factors, including “deep ignorance on economic issues” and a belief that his high-level qualifications gave him authority to suspend laws – including those of supply and demand.