Govt wins case against 5bn/- compensation

FAUSTINE KAPAMA

THE High Court (Mtwara Registry) has dismissed a suit lodged by a local investment company, Indo-African Estates Limited, against the Attorney General (AG) and three other defendants, demanding 5bn/- compensation for a dispute of a farm situated in Lindi Region.

High Court Judge, Dr Twaib Fauz, ruled in favour of the defendants, who include the Minister for Lands and Human Settlements Development, the Regional Commissioner for Lindi Region and the District Commissioner for Lindi District after allowing an objection from the defendants to the effect that the suit was time barred.

The judge noted from the facts of the case that, as rightly submitted by Senior State Attorney Abdulrahman Mohamed for the defendants that the claim for compensation was founded on tort.

“In view of item 6 of Part I of the Schedule to the Law of Limitation Act, a suit founded on tort must be instituted within three years from the date the cause of action arose.

It is a settled principle of law that parties are bound by their pleadings,” Dr Fauz said in his judgment delivered recently. In the plaint, he noted, the Indo-African Estates Limited, as plaintiff stated that the invasion of his land measuring 3,501 acres occurred in 2004.

The judge, therefore, ruled that the suit having been filed 11 years later in October 2015 was hopelessly out of time.

He pointed out that perhaps the position might have been more favourable to the plaintiff had it joined the villagers in a case founded on ownership and occupation of land, which would have constituted the matter into a land dispute, whose limitation runs for 12 years.

According to him, without the villagers, who would have been necessary parties in such a case, the suit remained one of tort and could not be based on a dispute over land held with such view upon close reading of the plaint of the suit.

Dr Fauz pointed out that both the government, which is alleged to have made the villagers invade the farm and the alleged invaders, who occupied and carried out activities in the suit farm should have been made parties to the case for a conclusive determination of the land dispute.

“It is obvious that the reason why this suit was ever filed was the alleged invasion of the villagers. Without that there would have been no suit. It would appear to me that the plaintiff is suing the wrong parties for wrong reliefs at the wrong time,” he ruled.

Dr Fauz concluded that having found that the suit against the parties was founded on tort and it was time barred, he was compelled to sustain the preliminary point of objection and “dismiss the suit under section 3(1) of the Law of Limitation Act [Cap 89 (R.E 2002)] for being time barred.”

Facts show that the Indo-African Estates Limited is and has been the lawful owner of the farm popularly known as Mkwaya Farm.

The company alleges to have been owning and using the farm for growing sisal and has been cultivating it for many years.

It was until about 1975, when the then Cashew Nut Authority of Tanzania (CATA), whose functions were later taken over by the Cashew Nut Board Authority of Tanzania, made its intention and commitment to buying or acquiring the farm for the purposes of establishing a cashew nut plantation.

As part of its preparations for the planned plantation, CATA uprooted all the sisal planted and at the time the plaintiff was asked to wait for compensation.

But the plaintiff was later informed by CATA that the buying of the estate was dropped due to unforeseen reasons. In 1980, the government showed the intention and commitment to buying the farm for establishing an agricultural college.

However, it never lived to its promise. Further, in the 1970s, the government registered a village in the name of Mkwaya, whose boundaries extended close to the plaintiff’s farm.

The population of Mkwaya Village increased and demand for more land intensified. The only land available was the plaintiff’s farm.

As a result, in 2004, the villagers began to trespass the farm. It was this trespass that culminated in land conflict, which formed the subject matter of the suit.