At least 132 people in Harare, including political heavyweights, face arrest for allegedly selling State land, corruptly allocating themselves stands, fraud, abuse of cooperative funds and criminal abuse of office.

This follows an audit report into Harare land sales by the commission led by Justice Tendai Uchena that traced the land transfers in urban areas since 2005.

Others stand accused of selling cooperative stands without authority from the Registrar of Cooperatives, malicious damage to property, as well as subdividing land reserved for recreational activities and schools.

Prominent names recommended for investigation in the Harare land audit report include former First Lady Grace Mugabe, former Cabinet Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo, ex-Local Government permanent secretary Engineer George Mlilo, ex- Cabinet minister Ms Nyasha Chikwinya, businessman Dr Phillip Chiyangwa, former Harare South legislator Mr Shadreck Mashayamombe and CAPS United vice president Mr Nhamo Tutisani.

The majority of the other people on the list are leaders of housing cooperatives set up by political heavyweights.

Our Harare Bureau understands the commission handed over the report to State arms for further investigations.

Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) chairperson Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo yesterday confirmed receiving a copy of the audit report, saying investigations were likely to start on Monday.

“Yes, we were given a copy of the land audit report by the Commission and our general manager (investigations) is liaising with the police so that we know who is doing what to avoid stepping on each other’s toes when investigating.

“We hope investigations will start on Monday after we have agreed on the cases that ZACC and the police will be investigating,” she said.-State media