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Nearly a decade after John Mpofu’s death, his widow and daughter remain without the Zvishavane home he spent years paying for. Mimosa says the agreement was cancelled and the property repossessed—but the record reviewed for this report does not explain when, why or on what precise basis that decision was made.
Mimosa Mining Company is facing growing questions over the cancellation of a home ownership agreement that the Mpofu family says should have allowed them to retain or complete the purchase of a Zvishavane house.
John Mpofu entered into an agreement with Mimosa in April 2006 to buy Stand No. 3830, Lot 4, Highlands Extension. He worked for the company and spent years making payments towards the property.
After Mpofu died in January 2013, his widow and daughter were eventually evicted. Nearly a decade later, the family is demanding US$20,000 in compensation. Mimosa has offered US$5,500, which it describes as the property’s full value.
The most consequential issue, however, is not only the difference between the two figures. It is the unresolved question of how Mimosa moved from an employee home ownership agreement to cancellation and repossession—and what happened to the contractual rights that Mpofu’s estate says survived his death.
A contract that contemplated Mpofu’s death
The agreement contained a specific provision dealing with the death of a purchaser before 10 years. It provided that the purchaser or his estate could continue making monthly payments or settle the outstanding balance in a single instalment.
Mpofu died after approximately nine years and nine months of service, according to his widow. That timing placed his estate squarely within the circumstances addressed by the clause.
Yet Mimosa’s current position is that the agreement was cancelled and the house repossessed. In its 2 September 2026 response to the estate, the company did not merely dispute the family’s valuation; it asserted that the agreement had already been terminated under its Home Ownership Scheme.
The documents reviewed for this report do not set out the precise trigger for the cancellation, the date on which it occurred, the notice given to Mpofu’s estate, or the contractual reasoning used to override the death provision.
Those omissions are central to the dispute. If the agreement permitted the estate to continue paying or settle the balance, the family’s claim is not simply a request for goodwill from a former employer. It is a demand for an explanation of how those contractual rights were treated after Mpofu’s death.
Eviction proceedings and a family left out of the home
The High Court later recorded that Mimosa had begun eviction proceedings against Mpofu sometime in 2012, before his death. A default judgment was obtained on 2 July 2014, followed by a writ of execution on 10 July.
The family says the widow and her daughter were evicted from the property in 2016.
A 2017 High Court judgment recorded questions surrounding the sale agreement, including whether it had subsequently been cancelled. But the judgment did not finally determine the family’s underlying ownership claim.
The result was a legal and administrative limbo: the family was out of the house, while the central contractual question remained contested.
Minister described the matter as ‘social injustice’
The dispute attracted the attention of Midlands Minister of State for Provincial Affairs O. Ncube. In a 24 January 2018 letter to Mimosa’s general manager, the minister said there appeared to be “social injustice” in the way the matter had been handled.
He cited the agreement’s death provision and noted that Mpofu had died before completing the stipulated 10-year period. The minister also recorded that Mimosa’s lawyers, Danziger and Partners, had offered the widow US$5,500 as a refund of her late husband’s purchase contributions, provided she surrendered the keys.
The minister further wrote that Winston Chitando, then a former executive chairman of Mimosa Mines, had instructed management to ensure that the property remained with the widow.
The available record does not show how that reported instruction was implemented, why the widow was not restored to the home, or what formal decision ultimately displaced the family’s claim.
A minister’s description of possible “social injustice” is not a judicial finding. But it underscores the seriousness of the concerns raised at the time—and the need for Mimosa to provide a clear chronology of the cancellation and repossession.
Property records introduce another unresolved name
The paper trail became more complicated in 2022.
On 19 January that year, Zvishavane Town Council wrote to the Judicial Service Commission concerning Mpofu’s estate. Council said its records showed that Mimosa had allocated Stand No. 3830 to Harrison Kamanga, referring to a Mimosa letter dated 2 November 2016.
Council further said a rates clearance certificate issued in June 2018 showed lawyers were processing a transfer from Mimosa to Kamanga.
However, council did not determine that Kamanga was the registered owner. It advised that the position be verified with Mimosa or the Registrar of Deeds if ownership had subsequently changed.
The documents reviewed for this report do not establish how Kamanga became associated with the property, whether the proposed transfer was completed, or how that process related to the Mpofu family’s unresolved dispute.
That sequence raises a straightforward accountability question: if Mimosa regarded the original agreement as cancelled and the property as repossessed, when was the decision made to allocate or seek to transfer the stand to another person—and what notice, if any, was given to Mpofu’s estate?
Mimosa stands by US$5,500 offer
The Zvishavane Magistrates Court appointed Mpofu’s widow executor of his estate on 10 January 2024 and empowered her to administer the estate and pursue its interests.
On 20 July 2026, she wrote again to Mimosa’s Human Resources Manager, describing the taking of the house as unlawful and demanding US$20,000 in compensation. The family’s valuation has not been independently verified.
Mimosa’s formal response was issued on 2 September 2026 in a letter addressed to Janet Ndlovu N.O., executrix of the Estate of the Late John Mpofu. Signed by Corporate Secretary M. Gore, the letter said the company had met the widow on 1 September and explained the circumstances surrounding Mpofu’s case.
Mimosa said the home ownership agreement had been cancelled and the house repossessed. It said the action was “not an isolated case” and had been handled in the same way as similar cases under the company’s Home Ownership Scheme.
The company said professional property valuers designated under the scheme had determined the full value of the property at US$5,500. It added that the same amount had been refunded for similar houses under the scheme.
Mimosa told the family that, if the amount remained unacceptable, it could approach the courts for an independent review and determination.
The company also said Impala, its shareholder, was not in a position to deal with the dispute because Mimosa is a separate legal entity.
But Mimosa’s explanation leaves the central questions intact. The company has described the outcome as part of a standard scheme, yet the supplied record does not include the cancellation notice, the relevant valuation report, the complete terms of the scheme, or documents showing how the family’s rights under the death clause were addressed.
The Day Star Investigations separately sought comment from Mimosa’s Head of Corporate Affairs, Elizabeth Nerwande, on the family’s claims and the issues raised by the documentary record. Nerwande had not responded directly to those questions by publication.
What Mimosa still needs to explain
The dispute now rests on competing positions. The Mpofu family says the estate retained rights under the home ownership agreement and that the house was unlawfully taken. Mimosa says the agreement was cancelled, the property repossessed and US$5,500 paid or offered in line with its scheme.
The company’s position may ultimately be tested in court. But before that happens, the paper trail raises questions that cannot be answered by repeating the value of the refund alone.
Mimosa should explain the precise contractual basis for cancelling the agreement, identify the date and process of repossession, disclose the valuation methodology supporting US$5,500, and clarify how the property became associated with Kamanga after the family’s dispute had begun.
It should also explain what became of the reported instruction that the widow be allowed to retain the home, and why a matter described by a government minister as appearing to involve “social injustice” remained unresolved for years.
For the Mpofu family, this is not an abstract dispute over an accounting figure. It is the loss of a home linked to a deceased breadwinner’s years of work and payments. For Mimosa, it is now a test of whether its employee housing scheme can withstand scrutiny when a purchaser dies before completing the required period.
Nearly a decade after Mpofu’s death, the family is still waiting for an answer to the question at the centre of the case: why was the agreement cancelled, and what happened to the rights it was supposed to protect?
