Grace Mugabe needs protection from vultures

Grace Mugabe needs protection from vultures
Published: 05 October 2019
ZANU-PF should learn to move with the times and stop persecuting the late former president Robert Mugabe's family.

Mugabe - who ruled Zimbabwe from 1980 until November 2017 when he was removed through a soft coup - died in Singapore last month.

Following the repatriation of his body, a standoff over the former president's final resting place ensued between his family and the government.

After almost three weeks of negotiations, Mugabe was finally buried at his rural home in Zvimba on Saturday last week instead of the National Heroes Acre.

Zanu-PF wanted Mugabe's remains interred at the national shrine. Just a few days after his burial in Zvimba, there are indications that government may evict Mugabe's widow, Grace, from the various properties the family occupies.

Grace risks losing farms in Mazowe where she has built a business empire that includes Gushungo Dairy and the Amai Grace Mugabe School.

The government has indicated that it intends to re-allocate the farms under her control to miners who were displaced from the area during her late husband's tenure in power.

The Mugabes' farms, including Manzou, Smithfield, Arnold and Foyle Estate, could now be parcelled out to miners. Grace also faces the prospect of losing the multi-million-dollar Blue Roof mansion in Borrowdale.

Zanu-PF claims Mugabe did not have title deeds to the grand house — which has 25 bedrooms — and was built using the finest Italian marble as well as crystal.

The ruling party is also claiming ownership of the Mt Pleasant house that Mugabe had given as a gift to his daughter Bona at her wedding to Simba Chikore.     

The government and Zanu-PF should have claimed all these properties while Mugabe was still alive.

The irony of these latest moves by the government and Zanu-PF is that they come at a time when there are calls to protect the property rights of widows.

First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa is on a nationwide tour to enlighten women on their rights when it comes to wealth redistribution when their spouses pass on.

Whether you like her or not, at this juncture Grace is a vulnerable widow, who needs to be protected from the vultures circling around Mugabe's wealth.

If a rich and influential woman like Grace stands to lose all her wealth after her husband's death, what hope will a widow in Rushinga or Dotito have? 

- dailynews
Tags: Mugabe,

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