2023-05-03 23:30:04
- Shingai Nyoka
- BBC News – Harare
17 minutes ago
Bona Mugabe with her husband at her father’s funeral in 2019
Legal papers in a court to consider the divorce case of the daughter of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe claim that she owns 25 residential properties, including a palace in Dubai, UAE, with a total value of about $80 million, according to what was seen by the BBC.
Bona Mugabe filed for divorce from her husband, former pilot Simba Mutsahony Chikor, last March.
Chikur wants to share the assets they each own, which also include 21 farms, he says.
Bona Mugabe has not yet commented on these allegations regarding her property, but she will be able to do so (in court).
A source close to the Mugabe family told the BBC the former president had nothing in his name at the time of his death, although he received £10m from the state as part of his pension.
The source also questioned whether Bona Mugabe had all the assets her ex-partner spoke of.
Despite this, the citizens of Zimbabwe expressed shock and anger at the amount of wealth possessed by only one daughter of the former president’s children.
Bona pictured with her father Mugabe and mother Grace, during her father’s 91st birthday celebrations
According to the divorce papers, Bona also owns luxury vehicles, farm equipment and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.
Some of the 21 farms were allegedly acquired by the Mugabe family during a controversial nationalization of white-owned farms in the early 2000s, despite a law allowing each citizen to own only one farm.
Chikur, who also claims joint custody of the couple’s three children, says his wife’s assets were acquired jointly and jointly during their marriage, through inheritance and donations from the late president in return for work done on the president’s behalf.
He adds that the assets he mentioned in the divorce papers represent a drop in the ocean, compared to the wealth that his wife owns directly.
In response, George Sharma, a spokesman for Mugabe and now working in President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s office, denied that the couple owned 21 farms.
“All agricultural land belongs to the state and is used by farmers under the lease system,” he wrote on Twitter.
He added that no one should “build any political stances or arguments about the so-called existence of 21 farms allegedly owned by Poona and her estranged husband”.
It is not clear when the divorce case, which is being heard by a court in the capital, Harare, will end.
Mugabe and Chikor married in a lavish wedding in 2014, which was attended by many African heads of state and was broadcast live on state television.
President Mugabe died in 2019 at the age of 95, without leaving a will. But he left his wife Grace, daughter Bona, two sons and a son with his wife.
Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980 until he was overthrown in 2017 by the current President Mnangagwa, who was his ally and then turned against him.
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