Judgment No. SC 13/18
Civil Appeal No. SC 469/13
Ref. HC 601/11
Ref. HC 9527/11
argument by the first appellant TBIC Investments (Pvt) Ltd that it is a black indigenous person
is therefore seriously flawed. Government policy relating to indigenous persons only relates
to natural persons and not companies. No government policy is violated when government
acquires land from a company for resettlement purposes. The court a quo’s determination that
the first appellant could lawfully be removed from the land to pave way for the first respondent
cannot be faulted.
I now turn to consider whether the first respondent’s claim can be defeated by
virtue of the alleged change of land use. The first appellant filed its opposing affidavit on
8 February 2011. The opposing affidavit was deposed to by its director Killian Kapaso duly
authorised thereto by resolution of the company directors. Nowhere in that affidavit did the
appellant raise the issue of change of land use as a defence to the first respondent’s claim.
The first appellant only raised the issue of change of land use more than two years
later in an affidavit deposed to by the same company director Killian Kapaso who had deposed
to the original opposing affidavit two years earlier.
In that affidavit, the first appellant was responding to the Chief Registrar of Deeds’
affidavit confirming that the land in dispute was registered in the name of the President of
Zimbabwe and had become State land in terms of s 16B of the Constitution. That registration
still subsists. It has not been nullified by any court of competent jurisdiction.
The issue of State ownership of the acquired land is really an issue between Cecil
Michel Reimer and the acquiring authority. Cecil Michael Reimer has however chosen not to
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