Finance and Economic Development Minister, Patrick Chinamasa
ZIMBABWE’S cash-strapped government has taken a big step towards compensating former white commercial farmers forced off their land under the chaotic and violent land reform programme that began in 2000, by expediting the farm valuation process.
This appears to be a major shift in land policy because government had previously maintained that farmers would not be compensated since the land had been stolen from the majority during colonial rule.
Finance and Economic Development Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, told the Financial Gazette that he had given resources to the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement to speed up the process, expected to be concluded next year.
He, however, did not disclose the amount of money parcelled out to the Lands Ministry.
Following this normative compensation model, Chinamasa said the evicted white farmers would be able to receive the compensation amounts allotted to them without “unnecessary delays”.
“We have given resources to the Ministry of Lands to speed up the valuation of improvements on farms that we acquired under the land reform programme, to enable us to pay compensation. So basically, this is what we have been doing behind the scene,” said Chinamasa.
The controversial State-backed farm invasions saw an estimated 4 000 white farmers forced off the land they had farmed for many years.
The fast-tracked land seizures triggered targeted sanctions from Western countries, a development which compounded Zimbabwe’s economic woes.
This resulted in international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank freezing financing in 1999 after the country defaulted on debt repayments.
Now, 16 years after it failed to compensate former white commercial farmers, government is under increasing pressure to woo back international donors and lenders.
Analysts said government fears this could be the biggest threat to ZANU-PF’s continued grip on power as Zimbabwe’s economic crisis deepens.
Government, according to Section 16 (a) and (b) of the country’s Land Acquisition Act, which was last amended in 2006, is required to pay fair compensation to any person who suffered loss or deprivation of rights as a result of expropriation of land within a reasonable time.
All expropriated farmland in Zimbabwe is now owned by the State, meaning that present occupants have no legal claim on the farms.
None of them have any form of title, meaning the land cannot be used as collateral.
This has made banks reluctant to extend loans to the new farmers to buy fertilisers, seed and chemicals to enable them to raise output, leaving the country struggling to feed itself. The country has witnessed a steep fall in commercial agricultural output since the land reform programme started.
Yields for the staple maize have fallen to an average 0,5 tonnes per hectare from eight tonnes per hectare in 2000.
Some of the evicted white farmers are now farming in Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Nigeria while others migrated to Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
Ironically, Zimbabwe is now importing maize meal from the former white farmers now farming in these countries.
In the absence of title deeds, government has struggled to transfer ownership of the land to the new settlers, a situation that has frustrated its plans to issue 99 year leases that are tradable and bankable.
But Chinamasa told the Financial Gazette that government was now in the process of remapping farm boundaries to enable it to give 99-year leases.
Chinamasa said:“We are working very hard to formulate, adopt and implement policies that will contribute to the turning around of the economic fortunes of our country. Some of these policies and activities have not been brought into the public domain, I think largely because we have taken what we are doing for granted.
“We have been doing a lot of activities in the area of land. We have provided resources to the Ministry of Lands for the re-mapping of farm boundaries. This is preparatory to granting legal documents that will give people security of tenure and this is 99 year lease documents.”
During its farm seizures, Harare broke bilateral investment agreements with other countries when it seized farms owned by foreigners.
A group of Dutch farmers forced off their farms by the land reform programme successfully sued for compensation at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes in 2009. Government was asked to pay them US$23 million in compensation. The Financial Gazette understands that there are overtures by Zimbabwe to resolve this issue involving the Dutch government.
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