A 61-year-old woman from Bulawayo is now homeless after she sold her house with the intention to invest in Planet Africa housing project introduced by the founder and leader of Prophetic, Healing and Deliverance Ministries, Prophet Walter Magaya.
Thembelani Ncube, who is also a member of Prophetic Healing Ministries, was lured to sell her eight-roomed house in Nkulumane 5 in 2017 with the intention to change the environment and stay in the promised estate house in Douglas Dale.
In an interview with CITE, Ncube said Magaya introduced the housing scheme to the church members in 2016.
“I was a member at Walter Magaya’s Ministries for 10 years, he introduced a scheme where he was going to build houses and those who wanted to be part of the scheme were supposed to pay US$4 000, a fee towards the construction of a house, then when you are a resident in the estate, you will be paying a certain amount until your debt is finished,” she said.
Ncube said she was also part of a number of investment projects which were introduced by the prophet.
“He introduced a number of projects that I was part of such as farming potatoes and onions, beekeeping, solar dryer fruit and vegetables. When farming had produced there was an announcement that we should go and collect the money in Harare, but when we got there, they told us to do a rollover to mining.”
Meanwhile, she said as part of the housing project, they were shown an estate which could accommodate about 1,500 houses and the images of ideal houses.
“All I want is my house or my money which I will use to buy a house because this is time wasted, from 2017 to now the money has depreciated in value, and I have no place to stay,” said Ncube.
She said she had reported the issue to the police and received no assistance.
“I have reported the issue to the police but they tell me, ‘anosunga Magaya ndiani’, they are not taking my issue serious and they are telling me to group with other people but I don’t know anyone involved as I was doing most of the things alone,” said Ncube.
“The police went to Umguza Rural District Council and they said they were told that there is no such housing scheme. They further referred the police to Mhlahlandlela. The police also told me that the company is in Harare. All I want is my money, I don’t even want to go to Harare.”
She added, “I believed this person and didn’t think he would do me like this hence I sold my house alone, when I left my house, I told my neighbours that I was going to stay at Douglas Dale, I didn’t even send my goodbyes to other neighbours and sold all my property,” she said.
Ncube said her two children no longer want anything to do with her after selling their house.
“I can’t even access Magaya due to protocol. His relatives who work in the Bulawayo branch used to send me constant greeting messages when I was making purchases but ever since I started demanding my money, they no longer greet me,” she said.
She added that the officials in the church branch in Bulawayo are telling her that they are sorting title deeds issue, “I asked them how come when we even paid the legal fees.”
“When I inquired about my investments in other projects, they told me that the bees died but who did they tell as he said he does his things openly. To make things worse I am the IR department member,” said Ncube.
The church spokesperson Overseer Admire Mhango was not reachable for a comment as his mobile phone rang unanswered and he did not respond to inquiries sent via WhatsApp.
However, a senior church official in Bulawayo who spoke on condition of anonymity said the residential stands are available but they are not serviced as they ran out of funds.
“It’s not true we never made anyone sell their property or anything, what is there are the stands that are in DouglasDale, we have almost 1 000 stands that were being serviced but the servicing was not completed because we ran out of cash, especially after the 1:1 dollarisation, so we never asked anyone to sell their property,” said the official.
She added, “The ministry never asked anyone to sell nor did the prophet, the stands are still there but the servicing is not done because of financial constraints as most of the people didn’t finish paying their instalments.”
The official said Ncube together with others is going to benefit once the houses are completed as they are currently looking for an investor.
“Yes, everyone who paid is going to benefit, there are 910 stands and about 700 people are on board so we have another 200 excesses. We are looking for an investor, as soon as we get an investor, they will start to see the progress,” said the official.
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