Story by Oleen Ndori
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has officially handed over title deeds to leading cement manufacturer PPC Zimbabwe, correcting a long-standing administrative error in which the government had inadvertently acquired the company’s privately owned land.
The handover took place during a meeting between President Mnangagwa and PPC executives at State House in Harare on Thursday.
The company received title deeds for Subdivision E of Arlington Estate, measuring approximately 480 hectares, which had been wrongly acquired.
“The title that we got is for 480 hectares. PPC owned the Arlington property prior to 2010, we then engaged with the government, and the government resolved to give the land back to us, given the circumstances. So today was the ceremonial handover of the title deeds to us, confirming the return of the land to us as PPC,” PPC’s Head of Legal and Compliance, Mr Tawanda Chiurayi said.
The Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Honourable Daniel Garwe, provided insight into the issue.
“You may want to know that during the land acquisition programme, the government erroneously acquired some land in Arlington which was privately owned in the urban area. The acquisition was an error and the company PPC wrote a letter of appeal to His Excellency and he understood their plight and directed the Ministery of Local Government and Public Works to correct the wrongs by restoring the status quo of that piece of land,” he said.
PPC is a leading supplier of materials and solutions in the basic services sector in Southern Africa, with 11 cement factories in South Africa, Botswana, DRC, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
