The arrest of two community leaders has triggered anger and suspicion that powerful land baron cum businessman Kenneth Raydon Sharpe and his company, Sunshine Development, are manipulating state institutions to seize land from legitimate owners.
On the day of his detention, 71-year-old Ward 12 Housing Cooperative chairman Cuthbert Molisen Finiyasi was summoned to Sharpe’s Mt Pleasant offices, where he was reportedly pressured to hand over part of the cooperative’s land in Arcadia.
When he refused, and began preparing a dossier for the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), he was abruptly called back.
Witnesses say ZACC officials, earlier seen collecting envelopes at Sharpe’s office, pounced and took him to their headquarters.
Finiyasi was held until late at night, coerced into signing a warned-and-cautioned statement that later vanished from the record.
His home was allegedly vandalised by ZACC agents, fueling suspicions of collusion.
Former Zanu-PF youth leader Jimu Kunaka, who voluntarily presented himself to ZACC after hearing of Finiyasi’s arrest, was also detained. Both men were later denied bail and remanded in prison, despite prosecutors failing to justify their arrests or present credible evidence in court.
“The charges are a complete fabrication,” one cooperative member told this publication on condition of anonymity.
“ZACC has been co-opted into underhand dealings designed to intimidate people. What is even more appalling is that developments continue unabated on the very land in dispute, despite the matter being before the courts.”
The arrests have cast a spotlight on internal disputes within the cooperative.
Members accuse secretary Amelia Goneso and chairperson Dananai Chikanya of fraudulent land deals and claim they collaborated with Sunshine Development to scapegoat Kunaka and Finiyasi while covering up their own activities.
At the centre of the storm is Sunshine Development (Pvt) Ltd, a joint venture between Sharpe’s Augur Investments and the City of Harare.
A 2009 Special Investigations Report found that Augur had received vast tracts of council land without investing the promised US$20–30 million for housing and infrastructure projects.
Instead, hundreds of hectares of prime land were transferred to Augur and its affiliates, including parcels in Warren Park, Hopley and Tariro.
Despite recommendations to return the land and bar Augur from municipal dealings, the company and its partners have maintained influence. Sunshine Development’s directors — Sharpe, Olelksandr Sheremet, M.J. Van Blerk, Tendai Mahachi, Psychology Chiwanga and Alistair Gibson — have all been linked to questionable land allocations.
For Ward 12 members, the imprisonment of Finiyasi and Kunaka feels like punishment for resisting what they describe as a systematic land grab.
“Imagine a 71-year-old being denied bail for standing his ground,” another cooperative member said.
He added “Instead of arresting those who looted Harare’s land, the system is jailing the victims.”
