Details of the huge wealth accumulated by former Zimbabwean Cabinet Minister Ignatius Chombo, now public knowledge because of a bitterly contested divorce settlement, have transfixed many people in that country. Now there’s been another, unusual, new judgment dealing with the same cast of divorcing characters and a yet further asset in the former Minister’s impressive portfolio. The case sees the Supreme Court deciding whether it was lawful for the government to cancel the 99-year lease it signed with the husband, on the claimed basis that the cancellation was necessary to ensure the former wife would get her fair share. Some of the language in that decision is – how to put this? – perhaps not what some readers might have come to expect from Zimbabwe’s highest court.
***
At the centre of this story stands Ignatius Chombo, one-time Cabinet Minister and close ally of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Once a member of Zanu-PF’s politburo, Chombo held a number of Cabinet posts including that of Finance Minister, but was removed from office and expelled from Zanu-PF and its central committee after Emmerson Mnangagwa ousted Mugabe in 2017. In March 2024 he was readmitted to the party, but no longer wields the same political clout as before.
Chombo has survived a number of claims related to corruption that emerged before and after his expulsion, and he has long been the object of public interest because he was believed to be immensely rich.
Now, in the wake of his divorce, there’s been confirmation of that huge wealth via court records. His former wife, Marian Chombo, is an MP and a powerful member of Zanu-PF’s current politburo, though part of a different grouping within the party from that of her former husband. Reports in the media tend to suggest that as the star of Ignatius has waned, so Marian’s has ascended.
The two have been unable to finalise the division of their marital estate, and it is through her settlement demands that the public has now glimpsed something of the fortune amassed during their 19 years of marriage.
Extraordinary wealth evidence of corruption?
Specially riveting is the long list of vehicles and properties in their marital estate against which the former wife wants to claim. One report said that Ignatius owned more than 100 properties, for example, mostly in Zimbabwe, but also in South Africa and elsewhere.
Many critics of the Zimbabwe government cite the former Minister’s extraordinary wealth as evidence of the corruption inside government and how fortunes have been made at the expense of ordinary Zimbabweans living in great poverty.
Despite the couple’s extensive options about how to divide the portfolio, there’s one property they both want and are determined to have: Allan Grange, a farm of about 3100 ha in Mashonaland West. Confiscated by the state as part of its controversial land reform policy, the farm was allocated to Ignatius in 2006 via a 99-year lease with the government, at a time when Chombo was Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development.
Confiscations peaked in the early years of this century, and were justified on the grounds that land taken without compensation from white farmers would be given to ‘landless people’. Perhaps unintentionally, the Supreme Court highlights what to some may seem the anomaly of Chombo getting this vast farm in the first place. Under the heading, ‘Background facts’, the court notes: ‘The appellant is a male adult and a beneficiary of the land reform programme.’
Lease cancelled so former wife would get her due
But in 2021, just 15 years after signing the lease with Chombo, the Minister of Lands, Fisheries, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement, changed his mind. Explaining why he had cancelled the lease, the Minister explained this was so that he could subdivide the farm and ensure that Marian received her rightful share in the wake of the couple’s divorce.
The lease cancellation also complicated another transaction: in 2018, Ignatius, the Minister (on behalf of the government) and a private investor concluded an agreement for developing the farm. Despite his involvement in this agreement however, the Minister cancelled the lease just three years afterwards.
Chombo approached the High Court claiming that the cancellation was unlawful. That court found in favour of the wife, prompting Chombo to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the outcome, and it’s this judgment that has now been delivered.
Security of tenure ‘critical’ to investment, development
The two decisions are most interesting, particularly for a reader aware that Ignatius would be aligned with one section of Zanu-PF and Marian with another, the one that is currently dominant. They must also be seen against questions about the independence of the judiciary in Zimbabwe and its usual attitude to government decisions.
In its decision, the Supreme Court is severely critical of the High Court and of the Minister’s decision, and writes, with no apparent sense of irony, that ‘Security of tenure is critical to land investment and development.’
The Minister’s cancellation of the lease on the basis of ‘unresolved divorce litigation’ was ‘legally premature’ since a court investigating the dispute had not yet finalised its order, the judges add. Moreover – and this finding is truly unusual – the decision ‘exemplified executive overreach into judicial terrain, undermining both contract and due process.’
As to the agreement between Chombo, the government and the investor, it was ‘legally binding’. Cancelling the lease midway through the contract wrongly exposed Chombo and the investor to ‘major commercial loss’.
The High Court was wrong to find it was lawful for the Minister to cancel the lease under clause 20, said the Supreme Court; clause 22.1 was the operative clause for cancellations.
State must ‘act within the law’
In his official explanation of the decision to cancel the lease, the Minister said he would be subdividing Allan Grange to ‘accommodate other occupants’ on the farm, to give Marian Chombo her share, and to leave Ignatius Chombo with the balance. Clause 20, under which these actions were taken, made no reference to cancellation of the lease, nor does it authorise any termination. Clause 22.1 on the other hand, which clearly governs any termination, was not invoked by the Minister. (It provides for cancellation in the event of insolvency for example, or failure to pay the rent.) This meant the Minister assumed broader powers than he was legally entitled to exercise.
The judges added several further criticisms of government action in the case, something that a reader would not usually expect to find. ‘Even where the land is state-owned, cancellation or repossession must follow the procedure laid down by law or contract. Executive fiat does not override agreed terms.’
The Minister’s action in claiming to have acted under clause 20 to ‘accommodate the ex-wife’s share in the land’ was also ‘legally untenable’: ‘The Minister’s decision to “downsize” the land and issue a new offer letter in favour of the ex-wife was not only legally premature but procedurally improper.’
‘Affront to separation of powers’
Then there’s this: the Minister’s conduct ‘amounts to executive interference in pending litigation and an attempt to predetermine a court outcome; an affront to the principle of separation of powers.’
Further, there was no public interest purpose in the cancellation, something essential to trigger clause 20: reallocating land to the former wife was ‘not a public interest’ matter, rather, ‘it is a private dispute between former spouses, subject to the resolution of matrimonial property rights by the courts.’
‘The Minister’s interference was not only premature but unlawful.’
The High Court hadn’t even considered how the state’s conduct (in being a party to the tripartite agreement to develop the land) ‘had created legitimate expectation’.
‘Grave miscarriage of justice’
The High Court’s failure to consider these and related issues ‘resulted in a grave miscarriage of justice,’ said the judges.
They officially granted the appeal, along with orders proposed by Chombo, namely declaring that the only way to cancel the lease on Allan Grange would be via clause 22.1 of the original agreement. On top of that, the court declared that because of the tripartite agreement between Chombo, the government and the private investor, the government had ‘irrevocably waived’ any right to cancel Chombo’s 99-year lease. More particularly, for the 20 years beginning in 2018 when the investment agreement was signed, the government may not cancel the lease nor in any way subdivide the farm.
So who or what is victorious here? Could it be the rule of law? The multi-millionaire former minister? A husband in a patriarchal society? One section of the ruling party? Perhaps it depends on the cynicism of the reader.
Supreme Court judgment
High Court judgment
- Written on 8 February 2026