The widow of the late former Army Commander General Vitalis Zvinavashe is locked in a bitter inheritance wrangle with the late general’s first son.

Zvinavashe, a 1970’s liberation war hero and former Gutu MP (ZANU PF), died in March. He was 66 years old.

Four months later, a dog fight has erupted between Zvinavashe’s young surviving widow, Margaret Zvinavashe (nee Mutamba), and the five-star general’s eldest son, Richard Musungwa Zvinavashe, who was appointed by his father executor of his estate before he died. She is the sister of Monica Chinamasa, the spouse of Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice.

Zvinavashe sired a total of 12 children with three different mothers. The disputed estate includes three commercial farms.

Zvinavashe was one of dozens of top ZANU PF officials who lost their seats in the March 29, 2008 general elections as the opposition MDC won a parliamentary majority.

Following his defeat, the wealthy former army commander concentrated on running his sprawling businesses empire. He owned a transport company, ran a number of private schools and owned several farms including the controversial Cold Comfort Farm in Harare, Lemonfonte Farm in Masvingo and Knockmalloch Estate in Norton. The later two are now the subject of fierce contention in the ongoing inheritance dispute between his wife and his eldest son.

The former army commander’s transport company made rich pickings while ferrying supplies from Harare to the military during the controversial deployment of the Zimbabwe National Army to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Zvinavashe’s son, who lived in the Diaspora for 20 years, only returned home after his father’s death.

His step-mother has taken great exception to his valuation of his deceased father’s estate without consulting her as the surviving spouse. The Zimbabwe Times was informed that efforts to resolve the dispute out of the courts have failed.

The surviving spouse contends that her stepson has also evaluated assets that belonged to her.

The dispute has now spilled into the courts, where Mrs Zvinavashe has asked the court to make a determination on the properties that are in dispute and on whether the evaluation by her stepson was valid at law.

“Given that the executor was abroad for the past 20 years or so, I begin to wonder how he knew what items belonged to the deceased’s estate and which belonged to the surviving spouse,” she said in an affidavit lodged in the High Court.

In her court papers Mrs Zvinavashe further accuses her stepson of stripping the Vitalis Musungwa Gava Zvinavashe (VMGV) Trust, which runs two private schools in Westlea including Tynwald Primary School, which produced the best Grade 7 exam results in Zimbabwe recently.

The Zimbabwe Times understands that also in dispute are two farms, Lemonfonte Farm in Masvingo and Knockmalloch Estate in Norton, where she says she solely furnished both farm houses and so had clear legal title to her property.

She says in her court papers that only farm equipment and the farm houses belonged to her late husband.

In a clear reflection of the deep-seated acrimony over the estate, Mrs Zvinavashe proposed in her court papers that the government should repossess the farms as they are “State property”. This is an apparent bid to deny her stepson access to his wealthy father’s assets.

Mrs Zvinavashe also wants the High Court to declare the valuation of the late general’s estate defective and therefore null and void at law.

Richard Zvinavashe has not yet lodged opposing papers, with his lawyer Shingi Mutumbwa reported to be working on the opposing affidavits.

(Source)