AGRICULTURE: Congress should bring finality to land issue

30 Nov, 2014 - 00:11 0 Views
AGRICULTURE: Congress should bring finality to land issue Some of the early villagers to invade farms

The Sunday Mail

Some of the early villagers to invade farms

Some of the early villagers to invade farms

Zanu-PF’s Sixth National People’s Congress, scheduled for Harare this week, is expected to address many of the issues affecting the people’s party and farmers are hopeful that it will bring finality to the land issue.

Chief amongst the grievances that have been expressed by the majority of farmers nationwide is that of persistent evictions of resettled Zimbabweans, lack of consistency in implementation of resettlements, and double-allocations that have continued over the past 14 years.

In interviews with resettled farmers, it emerged that some beneficiaries are being evicted on the grounds that they were either initially allocated the “wrong” land, or — worse still — to pave way for white farmers.

In most of these cases, the beneficiaries had been given offer letters or permits were subsequently withdrawn by authorities who gave rather unconvincing excuses for their arbitrary actions.

These cases show a clear lack of consistency in implementation of Government policies on land allocation.

In an ideal situation, policy implementation does not change because a new minister has been appointed or the chief lands officer has been reassigned.

There are many cases of double allocations and serious boundary disputes and these have resulted in people violently attacking one another as they fight over the same piece of land.

While Government policy clearly states that if a person has been on the land for more than five years, he or she must be considered the legal tenant, this seems not to have been followed both by the relevant authorities and the new occupants who in most cases rush to courts for eviction orders at the expense of the first beneficiary.

There are reports of farmers fighting for the same piece of land at Katawa Farm in Chegutu with one of them seriously injured in a physical attack.

Another case worth citing is that of Banbury Farm in Mazowe with farmers currently locked in endless and serious squabbles.

“Vanhu vachatemana if no solution is found quickly. (People will hurt each other here),” warns farmer Mr Kenneth Chinyanga.

Is this what the land reform programme is about?

It is against this background that stakeholders are calling on Zanu-PF to ensure its Congress addresses these issues once and for all so as to instill confidence in the beneficiaries of this noble programme that was initiated to correct colonial land imbalances.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union President Mr Wonder Chabikwa says, “We are not happy at all to see a farmer who has been in occupancy of a farm for more than five years being evicted now simply because someone else has been offered that same land.

“Where was that person who is coming now? Some farmers who would have developed those farms by way of putting up structures are being evicted willy-nilly and being thrown to the wild.”

He says that while some were being evicted on the grounds that they failed to fully utilise the farms, Government should take into cognisance the fact that these people do not have financial support or sources of inputs to get to 100 percent capacity utilisation in a few, short years.

Mr Chabikwa is particularly incensed by reports of more than 1 000 resettled farmers on Windcrest Farm in Masvingo having their homes torched during evictions, describing the process as “inhuman”.

In several cases, evictions are being conducted to make room for senior Government and ruling party officials and their friends and relatives at the expense of ordinary Zimbabweans who were at the forefront of getting the white commercial farmers to move out at the height of land reforms.

“It is just unfair for such practices to be allowed to continue as it is these ordinary people that continue to be victims of government’s inconsistency in its policies,” Mr Chabikwa says.

War veteran Cde Edmore Matanhike says Zanu-PF cannot allow the situation to carry on as it is.

“Where are these farmers expected to go after giving up their farms which had become homes for these beneficiaries? We believe and trust that this Congress will deal with this issue once and for all.”

In its 2013 election manifesto, the revolutionary party says land is the most indigenous resource in Zimbabwe, with 91 percent of it now owned by the indigenous population.

During the Third Chimurenga which started in 2000, a total of 276 620 indigenous households had up to last year been reported as having taken full ownership of 12 117 000 hectares of land, representing 31 percent of prime farms previously controlled by some 3 500 white farmers.

Farmers under the A1 resettlement scheme were reported last year as having been allocated over four million hectares while those under the A2 scheme gained 3,5 million hectares.

Surely, this is a revolution worth protecting.

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