Front for Economic Emancipation in Zimbabwe (FEEZ) Wednesday petitioned President Emmerson Mnangagwa to release the long-awaited Land Commission audit report.
The Land Commission was established to analyse land allocation data and the extent of land distribution with respect to gender, equity classification, environment management among others presented its findings to Mnangagwa some two years ago.
Reports say the land audit exposed vote-buying by the ruling Zanu PF party, and politicians illegally parcelling out state land in and around urban areas to lure voters.
However, Mnangagwa has kept the findings under wraps despite promises he would make the report public.
As a result, FEEZ is demanding the report be made public.
“The resultant land audit report and its recommendation have never been published to the general public at the time of the petition,” Godfrey Tsenengamu FEEZ national coordinator wrote in the petition.
“At the 2019 Zanu-PF Goromonzi (annual people’s) conference, incumbent President Mnangagwa informed the nation that the Land Audit Report contained a list of the Zanu-PF members who are multiple farm holders.
“We, therefore, take the President’s statements above as confirmation that the Zimbabwe Land Commission had finalised its report and had also made it accessible to the president.
“In that regard, we are writing to express our legal right to request access to the Land Commission Audit Report as a public interest stakeholder in safeguarding transparency and accountability, governance in the country as well as the body of the person entitled to the right to access the report in terms of section 62 of the constitution of Zimbabwe 2013.”
Tsenengamu added: “We insist that the scope of the above provision in the supreme law of the land justifies our legal right to request to the audit report as well as to seek its release to the general public, being information held by an agency of the state.”
The commission, chaired by Justice Tendai Uchena, investigated the sale of state land in all 10 provinces and discovered there were 156 cases of state land theft in Harare province, while Mashonaland West and East had a combined 195 cases, Midlands 27 and Masvingo 22.
The report also shows the government is owed more than US$3 billion by beneficiaries of urban state land while the political elite in Zanu PF used the land as a political tool.