Exposed: Inside Manyame shady land deals . . . Zanu PF MP implicated . . . villagers resist land takeover

📅 Published: August 21, 2025

Curated by AllZimNews.com

The investigation was carried out in collaboration with Information for Development Trust, a non-profit organisation supporting investigative reporting around corruption and public as well as corporate accountability.

Residents affected by the controversial land allocations have come out guns blazing — and so has Chief Seke — with both sides accusing the local authority and Benza’s Herentals of subverting the law and harming local social and economic interests.

The Herentals Group is a mass-enrolment institution that already has at least 45 learning centres in different parts of the country.

Greater Harare has the highest density of learning centres, with 20 and the group also has branches in Mutare, Masvingo, Beitbridge, Chiredzi, Victoria Falls, Gweru, Zvishavane and Chitungwiza.

This investigation established that Herentals is seeking to expand to rural Seke, an expansive market where some of its learners are having to travel to the Chitungwiza branch, among an assortment of other schools and colleges in the vicinity, for high school and vocational training.

Political connections
Benza is not a small player by any standards.

He owns topflight football club, Herentals FC and sources say he is a close associate of Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, the current Defence minister and the fourth most powerful politician in Zanu PF after the President and his two deputies.

The Defence minister, then in charge of the Zanu PF Women’s League, threw her weight behind Benza as a 2013 Zanu PF parliamentary candidate during a star rally in Mutasa, Manicaland.

Benza did not make it then.

Chief Seke and his subjects have been up in arms against the attempted takeover of pieces of land in the area by Herentals.

The affected communities in Seke are angry that MRDC has been supporting the Herentals land acquisitions in disregard of due process. 🔗

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