Robert Mugabe's Wife ANd Her Illicit Empire

How Grace's empire has fallen into ruin print friendly version
author/source:Cape Argus (SA)
published:Mon 28-Sep-2009
posted on this site:Tue 29-Sep-2009
Article Type : News
At least Robert Mugabe has ensured that the farms he took as part of his "land reform programme" are productive, if not profitable
Peta Thornycroft

Harare - While many of her countrymen remain hungry, Zimbabwe's First Lady Grace Mugabe has destroyed most of the choice white farms she has seized. Grace, the wife of President Robert Mugabe, has established a state-of-the-art dairy on one of the six or more farms she has acquired. And she is controversially selling milk to the Swiss-based company Nestlé. President Mugabe has also secretly grabbed five choice farms for himself, the Weekend Argus revealed yesterday. At least Robert Mugabe has ensured that the farms he took as part of his "land reform programme" are productive, if not profitable. But most of Grace's estates have fallen into ruin. Probably the previously most profitable of them, Zimbabwe's largest seed producing farm, Sigaro, in the rich Mazowe Valley near Harare, now produces no crops. Its infrastructure, packing sheds, a seed factory and a luxury home, burned down in 2007. The farm, among the top 10 most valuable in the country in 1999, lies fallow and it would take millions of rands to get it productive again. Next door to Sigaro, Gwebi Woods, a large export granadilla farm, owned by Washington Matsaire, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, which Grace took early this year, was also burned down and lies fallow.

Even Foyle Farm, which she took in 2003, and where she has built her hi-tech dairy, is nowhere near as productive as it once was. It was Zimbabwe's top producer, yet today, despite the millions of rands of world class dairy equipment supplied and installed for Grace in June by Dairy Care, a South African company, it still produces only a sixth of the milk it did six years ago. Delaval, in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal which supplied Grace with the dairy equipment imported mainly from Germany, Sweden and Poland, said it was a top-of-the-range installation. Delaval spokesman Rykie Visser said he could not discuss the cost of Grace Mugabe's dairy equipment. "We keep that information confidential about all our customers," he said last Friday. Grace Mugabe's milk is bought by Nestlé Zimbabwe, part of the international group in Geneva, and while Switzerland is not a member of the EU it adopted its own measures against some Zanu PF leaders, including Grace Mugabe. The measures rule that Switzerland, like the EU, will not provide funds to anyone on its sanctions list. Other farms taken by Grace Mugabe, Leverdale and Gwina, in Banket, about 80km north of Harare were part of a farming operation run by the Nicolle family which produced 20 percent of Zimbabwe's wheat in winter. No wheat was planted this winter on these famed, rich red soils which have provided food for tens of thousands of Zimbabweans for decades.

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