From '
The Daily Telegraph':
Rolls-Royces and Dubai mansion among Mugabe assets in £65m divorce battle
Court papers reveal details of family’s wealth for first time, against backdrop of rampant inflation and high unemployment in the country
ByPeta Thornycroft4 May 2023 • 6:42pm
Bona (centre), 33, has filed for divorce from her husband, Simbarashe Mutsahuni CREDIT: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images
Rolls-Royce cars, a mansion in Dubai and former white-owned farms seized under
Robert Mugabe’s regime are all up for grabs in a divorce battle documenting the late Zimbabwean dictator’s lavish wealth.
Divorce court papers publicly list for the first time much of the family’s portfolio, previously kept secret amid economic turmoil.
Property valued at nearly £65 million has been disclosed, after
Mr Mugabe’s
daughter, 33-year-old
Bona, filed for
divorce from her husband, Simbarashe Mutsahuni, also called Chikore.
Mr Chikore, a former airline pilot, has opposed the divorce, but requested joint custody of the couple’s three children and a slice of the pair’s assets.
In court papers, he listed 21 farms and more than 25 residential properties in upmarket Harare suburbs, including one valued at £32 million, along with a £6 million mansion in Dubai.
Cars listed included a £640,000 Rolls-Royce and three Range Rovers.
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Ms Mugabe also held “substantial cash in foreign currency” and allegedly removed “cash in the sum of $760,000 in a bag” from the couple’s residence, according to the papers.
The family ‘helped itself’
Details of the family’s lavish wealth have been disclosed against a backdrop of rampant inflation and high unemployment in the country.
The family, led by
Grace, the former president’s second wife, has long been accused of helping itself to some of Africa’s finest farms and
richest urban properties, even though Mr Mugabe styled himself as a Marxist or socialist.
Their property had never been officially listed before, and the family had declined to admit ownership of many farms.
Farm seizures created poverty
The list includes
several former white-owned farms that were seized when Mr Mugabe allowed veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war to occupy land in a programme called
Fast Track Land Reform.
The seizures, which began after 2000, quickly collapsed an economy that had been reliant on agriculture, tipping a large number of people into poverty and unemployment.
Included on the list was the 2,500 acre
Iron Mask Estate, which the former first lady took control of in 2002, after Joe and Eva Matthews were chased out of their home.
Also listed is
Foyle Farm in the same Mazowe Valley, which was once Zimbabwe’s most productive dairy, run by Ian Webster.
He was bought out for about $5 million and fled to Australia.
Sources said it was unclear whether Mrs Mugabe had used her own money or government funds for the buyout.
Grace Mugabe was given the nickname Gucci Grace because of her shopping trips CREDIT: AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi
Nearby farmers and workers this week told the Telegraph that the herd had been badly mismanaged by the new owners and Foyle Farm no longer produced dairy products.
Grace Mugabe, who was given the nickname Gucci Grace because of her shopping trips, also took over a clutch of historic citrus farms in the Mazowe Valley, which are listed in the proceedings.
Elsewhere, as war veterans seized land, Mr Mugabe bought the 1,100-acre Highfield farm at a knockdown price from a white owner.
Several other farms nearby were seized.
The court papers also list a property in Dubai, although United Arab Emirates estate agents have said in the past that the family only rented.
‘Agricultural land belongs to the state’
When Zimbabwe went into an inclusive government with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in 2009, the population was shocked to learn that many of the Mugabe farms were funded and managed by the state’s agricultural department.
Taxpayers had funded farm worker wages, seeds, fertiliser and management of crop production.
George Charamba, who was Mr Mugabe’s spokesman and now serves in president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s office, denied that the couple owned 21 farms, the BBC reported.
“All agricultural land belongs to the state, with farmers using it on lease basis,” he said.
No-one should “build any politics or arguments around [the] so-called 21 farms allegedly owned by Cde Bona and her estranged hubby”.
Mr Mugabe was ousted in November 2017, and
died in Singapore in 2019, aged 95.
